Goals

1. Provide a clear and maintainable monorepo structure using Express.js with TypeScript and Turborepo.
2. Enable backend-only teams to adopt Turborepo for organizing multiple Express apps and shared libraries.
3. Simplify local development and production builds using tools like tsup, nodemon, and turbo run.

Non-goals

1. No frontend (React, Next.js, etc.)—backend-only structure.
2. No SSR, frontend rendering, or full-stack examples.
3. No deployment-specific configurations (e.g., Docker, Railway)—though those can be discussed separately.

Background

Turborepo is an excellent tool for monorepos but is heavily geared toward frontend use cases. There’s a growing need for backend-only monorepos, especially for teams building microservices, REST APIs, or internal tools using Express.js and TypeScript.

Currently, developers must manually configure:
TypeScript + shared tsconfig.base.json
Turbo pipelines (build, dev, etc.)
Dev server setup with nodemon or ts-node-dev
Build scripts using tsup or esbuild
Code sharing via packages/

There’s no official Express.js example that fits this backend-only monorepo use case.

Proposal

Create an official or community-backed example for Express.js monorepos using Turborepo.