Create an Express API in your Nuxt 2 Application

Getting Started

Create a folder called api in your project's root directory.

Install Express:

# Using NPM
npm install express
# Using Yarn
yarn add express

Creating a Basic API

Create an index.js file in the api folder.

In the index.js file put the following:

import express from "express";

const app = express();

app.use(express.json());
app.use(express.urlencoded({ extended: true }));

app.get("/", (req, res) => {
  res.send("Hello World!");
});

export default app;

Notice that on line 12 we export the Express application. This is needed so Nuxt can use our API.

Registering the Express API to Nuxt

Open your nuxt.config.js and add the following entry to the serverMiddleware property:

export default {
  // ...
  serverMiddleware: [
    // ...
    {
      path: "/api",
      handler: "~/api"
    }
    // ...
  ]
  // ...
}

The path property assigns the given value as the path of the api, so if you make it /server the API will map to /server.

Now when you navigate to /api, it will display Hello World!.

Further Information

You can also extend the API with adding database support, controllers, etc...