Servers TL;DR

Just write Node.js servers like this:

import { createServer } from 'http';

const server = createServer((req, res) => {
    res.write('Hello World!');
    res.end();
});

server.listen();

or write Express servers like this:

import express, { Request } from 'express';

let db = {
    hello: ''
};

const app = express();

app.use(express.json());

app.get('/db', (req, res) => {
    res.json(db);
});

app.post('/db/update', (req: Request<any, any, typeof db>, res) => {
    db = req.body;

    res.json(db);
});

app.use(express.static('/dist'));

app.listen();

or NestJS servers like this:

import { NestFactory } from '@nestjs/core';
import { NestExpressApplication } from '@nestjs/platform-express';

import { AppModule } from './app.module';

async function bootstrap() {
    const app = await NestFactory.create<NestExpressApplication>(AppModule);
    await app.listen(3000);
}

bootstrap();

Servers

Node.js http.server
Express
Server
Limitations

Azle supports building HTTP servers on ICP using the Node.js http.Server class as the foundation. These servers can serve static files or act as API backends, or both.

Azle currently has good but not comprehensive support for Node.js http.Server and Express. Support for other libraries like Nest are works-in-progress.

Once deployed you can access your server at a URL like this locally http://bkyz2-fmaaa-aaaaa-qaaaq-cai.localhost:8000 or like this on mainnet https://bkyz2-fmaaa-aaaaa-qaaaq-cai.raw.icp0.io.

You can use any HTTP client to interact with your server, such as curl, fetch, or a web browser. See the Interacting with your canister section of the deployment chapter for help in constructing your canister URL.

Node.js http.server

Azle supports instances of Node.js http.Server. listen() must be called on the server instance for Azle to use it to handle HTTP requests. Azle does not respect a port being passed into listen(). The port is set by the ICP replica (e.g. dfx start --host 127.0.0.1:8000), not by Azle.

Here's an example of a very simple Node.js http.Server:

import { createServer } from 'http';

const server = createServer((req, res) => {
    res.write('Hello World!');
    res.end();
});

server.listen();

Express

Express is one of the most popular backend JavaScript web frameworks, and it's the recommended way to get started building servers in Azle. Here's the main code from the hello_world example:

import express, { Request } from 'express';

let db = {
    hello: ''
};

const app = express();

app.use(express.json());

app.get('/db', (req, res) => {
    res.json(db);
});

app.post('/db/update', (req: Request<any, any, typeof db>, res) => {
    db = req.body;

    res.json(db);
});

app.use(express.static('/dist'));

app.listen();

jsonStringify

When working with res.json you may run into errors because of attempting to send back JavaScript objects that are not strictly JSON. This can happen when trying to send back an object with a BigInt for example.

Azle has created a special function called jsonStringify that will serialize many ICP-specific data structures to JSON for you:

import { jsonStringify } from 'azle/experimental';
import express, { Request } from 'express';

let db = {
    bigInt: 0n
};

const app = express();

app.use(express.json());

app.get('/db', (req, res) => {
    res.send(jsonStringify(db));
});

app.post('/db/update', (req: Request<any, any, typeof db>, res) => {
    db = req.body;

    res.send(jsonStringify(db));
});

app.use(express.static('/dist'));

app.listen();

Server

If you need to add canister methods to your HTTP server, the Server function imported from azle allows you to do so.

Here's an example of a very simple HTTP server:

import { Server } from 'azle/experimental';
import express from 'express';

export default Server(() => {
    const app = express();

    app.get('/http-query', (_req, res) => {
        res.send('http-query-server');
    });

    app.post('/http-update', (_req, res) => {
        res.send('http-update-server');
    });

    return app.listen();
});

You can add canister methods like this:

import { query, Server, text, update } from 'azle/experimental';
import express from 'express';

export default Server(
    () => {
        const app = express();

        app.get('/http-query', (_req, res) => {
            res.send('http-query-server');
        });

        app.post('/http-update', (_req, res) => {
            res.send('http-update-server');
        });

        return app.listen();
    },
    {
        candidQuery: query([], text, () => {
            return 'candidQueryServer';
        }),
        candidUpdate: update([], text, () => {
            return 'candidUpdateServer';
        })
    }
);

The default export of your main module must be the result of calling Server, and the callback argument to Server must return a Node.js http.Server. The main module is specified by the main property of your project's dfx.json file. The dfx.json file must be at the root directory of your project.

The callback argument to Server can be asynchronous:

import { Server } from 'azle/experimental';
import { createServer } from 'http';

export default Server(async () => {
    const message = await asynchronousHelloWorld();

    return createServer((req, res) => {
        res.write(message);
        res.end();
    });
});

async function asynchronousHelloWorld() {
    // do some asynchronous task
    return 'Hello World Asynchronous!';
}

Limitations

For a deeper understanding of possible limitations you may want to refer to The HTTP Gateway Protocol Specification.

The top-level route /api is currently reserved by the replica locally
The Transfer-Encoding header is not supported
gzip responses most likely do not work
HTTP requests are generally limited to ~2 MiB
HTTP responses are generally limited to ~3 MiB
You cannot set HTTP status codes in the 1xx range

The Azle Book