When should I add auth to a Node.js server?
After the database is connected and basic CRUD works. Auth builds on the user model, so having a working database first means you can implement signup, signin, and protected routes properly.
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More FAQs in A Roadmap to Building a Node.js Server From Scratch to Production
In order: build with the raw http module to learn, switch to Express for productivity, add a database with MongoDB, add auth with JWT, add security middleware, add logging and error handling, use a process manager like PM2, and deploy.
To learn how routing, body parsing, and responses work at the raw level. Express abstracts this, so understanding it manually first makes Express more meaningful and helps you debug at a deeper level.
To handle automatic restarts, clustering across CPU cores, and monitoring. Running node app.js directly in production means an unhandled crash takes down your app with no recovery. PM2 manages this for you.
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