Course Setup and Express API Goals

This lesson establishes the working goals for the course and sets expectations for the API you will build with Express.js. You will define what a production-ready REST API needs beyond simple route handlers: predictable project structure, clear request and response behavior, environment configuration, validation, error handling, logging, testing, and deployability.

You will also prepare a practical Node.js project foundation for the rest of the course. By the end, you should understand the role Express will play, what parts of the system we will build incrementally, and how to think about API design decisions before writing large amounts of code.