Angular Universal with api internal express calls - node.js

Question

I have checked several tutorials and walkthroughs on how to add SSR (server-side rendering) to existing angular CLI & Express projects.
I was able to run node with SSR but I'm unable to make API calls.
I wish to run one node process that can serve static file (Angular with SSR) and dynamic content with API calls which access SQLITE DB using KNEX.
This is my server.js file
// These are important and needed before anything else
import 'zone.js/dist/zone-node';
import 'reflect-metadata';
import { enableProdMode } from '#angular/core';
import * as express from 'express';
import { join } from 'path';
// Faster server renders w/ Prod mode (dev mode never needed)
enableProdMode();
// Express server
const app = express();
const PORT = process.env.PORT || 3000;
const DIST_FOLDER = join(process.cwd(), 'bin/dist');
// * NOTE :: leave this as require() since this file is built Dynamically from webpack
const { AppServerModuleNgFactory, LAZY_MODULE_MAP } = require('./bin/dist/server/main');
// Express Engine
import { ngExpressEngine } from '#nguniversal/express-engine';
// Import module map for lazy loading
import { provideModuleMap } from '#nguniversal/module-map-ngfactory-loader';
app.engine('html', ngExpressEngine({
bootstrap: AppServerModuleNgFactory,
providers: [
provideModuleMap(LAZY_MODULE_MAP)
]
}));
app.set('view engine', 'html');
app.set('views', join(DIST_FOLDER, ''));
// import * as apiS from './server/index';
// apiS.load(app);
// TODO: implement data requests securely
// app.get('/api/*', (req, res) => {
// res.status(404).send('data requests are not supported');
// });
import * as LoadRoutes from './server/boot/routes';
LoadRoutes.load(app);
// Server static files from /browser
app.get('*.*', express.static(join(DIST_FOLDER, '')));
// All regular routes use the Universal engine
app.get('*', (req, res) => {
res.render('index', { req });
});
// Start up the Node server
app.listen(PORT, () => {
console.log(`Node server listening on http://localhost:${PORT}`);
});
Is it even possible to accomplish SSR + API calls from the same node process and if so can someone post here answer?

Answer 1

It's already there. Just uncomment these lines and extend the API routes with Express router:
app.get('/api/*', (req, res) => {
res.status(404).send('data requests are not supported');
});
Use the router file instead:
app.use('/api/*', appRoutes);
Every URL starting with api/ will be served by backend APIs.