How to add a route prefix to specific modules using NestJS?

Question

I want to add routing prefixes at the module level and/or have complex global routing prefix logic in general.

I know I can use the undocumented function NestApplication.setGlobalPrefix to set a single global prefix:

// main.ts
app.setGlobalPrefix(version);

However, I want to set prefixes at the module level in this case.

It appears I could achieve this by setting my desired prefix into the decorators at the controller level:

//controler.ts
@Get('/PREFIX/health')
async getHealth() {

  // TODO: implement
  return {};
}

But this seems fairly hacky and error-prone. Surely there is a better way?

Answer 1

Update 2021

NestJS now supports the original answer natively.

In addtion, NestJS v8 also adds more sophisticated routing when the primary function is versioning an API:

@Controller({
  path: 'cats',
  version: '1', // 👈
})
export class CatsController {
...

Original Answer

The most robust way to accomplish this in NestJS is to use the nest-router package to create a routing tree.

yarn add nest-router
# or npm i nest-router

Create a file next to main.ts called routes.ts like so:

import { Routes } from 'nest-router';
import { YourModule } from './your/your.module';

export const routes: Routes = [
  {
    path: '/v1',
    module: YourModule,
  },
];

Then, inside your app.module.ts file, add the router before any other modules are loaded:

@Module({
  imports: [
    RouterModule.forRoutes(routes),
    YourModule,
    DebugModule
  ],

})

Now when you navigate to YourModule controller, all of its routes will be prefixed with e.g. v1 in this case:

curl http://localhost:3000/v1/your/operation

Using this approach gives you the most flexibility as each module does not need to know how it will be prefixed; the application can decide at a higher level. Almost more advanced prefixes can be computed dynamic versus relying on a static string.