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Start your Node.JS App

Now that your iCure environment is successfully set up, you will be able to start the creation of your Node.JS Server App.

The typical use case for creating a Node.JS application is to build a service, that will process the records created by your users and compute advanced statistics/analysis on them.

All medical data is encrypted by default inside iCure. This is why you need to be able to decrypt it in your Node.JS app before being able to process it. In the following Quick Start, you are connecting using the credentials of the parent organization.

In this Quick Start, we assume you already followed the Quick Start - Set up your environment including the Quick Start - Configure your parent Organisation step.

We also assume that you already have a React.JS or React Native App, that you have connected to iCure. Two other quick starts are available to help you with this: Quick Start - Connect your React.JS App and Quick Start - Connect your React Native App. In this App you will have to set up sharing of encrypted information with the parent organization.

To make it easier for you, we created a Node.JS Template Repository, that includes:

  • All the needed dependencies to work with iCure in a Node.JS app;
  • The cryptographic keys creation of your parent organisation (See Quick Start - Configure your parent Organisation for more information), to allow you to directly start working with medical data.

Before starting​

Make sure you generated an authentication token for your parent organisation, in order to allow it to connect to the iCure API.

You should now be in possession of your PARENT_ORGANISATION_USERNAME and your PARENT_ORGANISATION_TOKEN.

Create your project​

Create a new repository from the template​

Head to our node js app template and click on Use this template to create a new repository initialised with the essential files for a node-js icure app (more on github templates). You can also initialise the repository using the GitHub CLI:

gh repo create <your-icure-nodejs-app> --private --clone --template icure/icure-medical-device-node-js-boilerplate-app-template

Alternatively you can also clone the Node.JS template project: 

git clone git@github.com:icure/icure-medical-device-node-js-boilerplate-app-template.git <your-icure-nodejs-app>

Beware that if you do this your repository will be initialised with the history from the template repository and the origin remote pointing to it. You may want to delete the .git folder and re-initialise the repository to achieve an effect similar to the github template.

Fill the .env file​

While you initialized your environment in Quick Start, we asked you to keep a series of information including:

  • the PARENT_ORGANISATION_USERNAME, the username of your parent organisation (Generally its email).
  • the PARENT_ORGANISATION_TOKEN, the authentication token of your parent organisation.

You need to add these information in your newly created Node.JS Server App. For this, rename the .env.default file to .env and complete the values of the corresponding variables.

Here is the list of a few other optional environment variables you can configure:

  • the PARENT_ORGANISATION_PUBLIC_KEY, RSA public key of your parent organisation, in case you already generated cryptographic keys for your parent organisation in the past.
  • the PARENT_ORGANISATION_PRIVATE_KEY, RSA private key of your parent organisation, in case you already generated cryptographic keys for your parent organisation in the past
  • the HOST, host to use to start your Node.JS server (Default is 127.0.0.1),
  • the PORT , the port to use to start your Node.JS server (Default is 3000),
  • the LOCAL_STORAGE_LOCATION, the path to your local storage file (Default is ./scratch/localStorage)

Start your Node.JS Server​

Once you provided the needed environment variables, start your Node.JS server: 

cd <your-icure-nodejs-app> && yarn && yarn start

Go to http://127.0.0.1:3000/ (except if you updated the HOST & PORT environment variables). You should see the information of your parent Healthcare Professional.

And that's it ! You're now all set to add new functionalities in your Node.JS Server using the iCure MedTech SDK.

What about the creation of my parent organisation cryptographic keys ?​

When you called http://127.0.0.1:3000 for the first time, as no cryptographic keys could be detected, neither in the localStorage location, neither in the .env file, the ICureApi logic created a new keypair for your parent organisation and saved them (both in localStorage location & .env file).

You can find the details of this implementation in the file services/ICureApi.ts.

Calling http://127.0.0.1:3000/ a second time, the keys being already created, no additional operation is needed and the information of your healthcare professional are directly returned.

Special case: The HCP already created some keys in the past​

In cascade, the ICureApi will try to:

  • Get the keys from the localStorage location;
  • If it can't find them, get them from the .env file and save them back into the localStorage;
  • If it can't find them in the .env file as well, try to create a new keypair and add the public key to your healthcare professional in iCure;

If you started your Node.JS server and got the error Aborting Cryptographic Keys creation: Current HCP already has cryptographic keys when calling http://127.0.0.1:3000/, it means you already created cryptographic keys for your parent healthcare professional. Therefore, creating a new keypair will override your previous key and you'll not be able to access the data shared with your previous keypair anymore.

Check if the location of your localStorage didn't change or if your .env file is complete.

danger

If you really wish to force the re-creation of your parent healthcare professioonal cryptographic keys, you can call http://127.0.0.1:3000?forceKeysCreation=true. Be aware you will not be able to decrypt the data shared with your previous RSA key anymore ! You should do this operation for tests purpose-only.

Congratulations !​

You are ready to start managing medical data inside your Node.JS App ! Time to have a look to our various How To's pages and start implementing the functionalities of your choice.