30-Day Cloud & DevOps Challenge: Day 2 — Building My First Backend API

The journey continues! After setting up my project structure on Day 1, today was all about building the heart of my microservices platform: the backend API. If you missed Day 1, you can catch up here: [https://dev.to/michellewanjiru/day-1-of-my-30-day-cloud-devops-challenge-project-setup-2a5a?trk=public_post_comment-text] What I Set Out to Do Today Build a working REST API that can: Respond to HTTP requests Return JSON data Serve as the foundation for my microservices platform Simple, right? Well... let me share how it actually went. The Tech Stack I Chose I decided to go with Node.js + Express for my backend because: JavaScript is everywhere (frontend, backend, even DevOps tools) Express is lightweight and beginner-friendly I already had Node.js installed on my Ubuntu system Step-by-Step: What I Actually Did 1. Initial Setup cd backend npm init -y # Creates package.json npm install express # Web framework npm install --save-dev nodemon # Auto-restarts server on changes What I learned: