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Setting up the Reveal SDK Server with NestJS

Setting up Reveal SDK with NestJS

This guide will walk you through integrating the Reveal SDK into a NestJS project. Follow the steps below to add powerful data analytics capabilities to your NestJS server.

Step 1 - Create a NestJS Project​

  1. First, install the NestJS CLI globally if you haven't already:
npm install -g @nestjs/cli
  1. Create a new project by running the following command:
nest new reveal-nest-server
  1. Change the command line path to the newly created project directory:
cd reveal-nest-server

Step 2 - Install the Reveal SDK​

  1. Inside the NestJS project directory, install the Reveal SDK for Node.js:
npm install reveal-sdk-node

Step 3 - Modify the main.ts File​

To integrate the Reveal SDK, we will modify the main.ts file directly, where we will enable CORS and add the Reveal SDK routes.

  1. Open the src/main.ts file.

  2. Update the bootstrap function to configure the Reveal SDK:

src/main.ts
import { NestFactory } from '@nestjs/core';
import { AppModule } from './app.module';
import reveal from 'reveal-sdk-node';

async function bootstrap() {
  const app = await NestFactory.create(AppModule);

  app.enableCors(); // DEVELOPMENT only! In production, configure appropriately.

  app.use("/", reveal());

  // Start the server
  await app.listen(process.env.PORT ?? 5111);
  console.log(`Reveal SDK server running on http://localhost:${process.env.PORT ?? 5111}`);
}
bootstrap();

This setup will configure the Reveal SDK to handle routes under /. The CORS policy is also enabled globally to allow requests from other origins.

note

You may need to set "esModuleInterop": true, in the tsconfig.json file.

Step 4 - Create the Dashboards Folder​

Reveal SDK expects dashboard files to be stored in a folder named dashboards in your working directory.

  1. In your project’s root directory, create a folder named dashboards.
mkdir dashboards

You can store any Reveal dashboards in this folder, and they will be accessible through the server. If you need to change this behavior, you can create a custom IRVDashboardProvider.

Step 5 - Run the NestJS Server​

  1. Start the NestJS server by running the following command:
npm run start

Alternatively, if you're in development mode, run the server with live-reload enabled:

npm run start:dev

Now, your NestJS server is running, and the Reveal SDK is ready to handle requests at http://localhost:5111/.

Get The Code

The source code to this sample can be found on GitHub.