bacali95/typesafe-rpc

Overview

This skill is a type-safe RPC library for Node.js and TypeScript that provides end-to-end types between server and client. It defines a schema of entities and operations, generates a typed client proxy, and exposes a server handler factory with hooks, routes, and middleware support.

How this skill works

You declare an api schema as a nested object: entity -> operation -> handler. Handlers are typed functions that receive { params, context } and return a Promise of the result. The server exposes createRpcHandler to accept POST requests with { entity, operation, params } and run the matching handler; the client uses createRpcClient to call endpoint methods like client.entity.operation(params, signal?).

When to use it

• Adding new RPC operations or editing existing ones in the schema.
• Wiring server-side request handling for typed RPC endpoints.
• Generating or using a fully typed client proxy in TypeScript or React.
• Implementing handlers that require request-aware context (e.g., auth).
• Composing middleware and routes for access control or input validation.

Best practices

• Define your api schema with as const so the client receives literal types and inference is exact.
• Extend BaseContext to include app-specific fields (userId, db, etc.) and pass context.request for each server call.
• Use Route with middleware chaining for clear AND/OR semantics: chained .middleware calls are AND, .middleware(a, b) uses OR semantics via orMiddleware.
• Provide a custom errorHandler in createRpcHandler to return structured error responses instead of a generic 500.
• Prefer the type definitions in the library’s shared types for exact Handler/Args shapes when implementing handlers.

Example use cases

• Implementing an items.getById handler that returns { name } and using the typed client to call it from React.
• Building authentication middleware that attaches userId to context and can be reused across routes.
• Composing authorization rules with orMiddleware so anonymous or token-based access can both succeed.
• Wiring a server endpoint that reads POST bodies from Fetch or Express and runs pre/post hooks for logging.
• Creating a typed client in the frontend that calls endpoint?entity::operation and benefits from compile-time params checks.