Build a Production-Ready Deno 2.0 REST API with Oak 12.0 and PostgreSQL 16.0

Introduction

Deno 2.0 brings stability, backwards compatibility, and production-grade features, while Oak 12.0 remains the go-to middleware framework for Deno HTTP servers. Paired with PostgreSQL 16.0’s performance improvements and JSON enhancements, this stack is ideal for scalable REST APIs. This tutorial walks through building a CRUD API for a task management app, with production-ready additions like connection pooling, validation, error handling, and Docker deployment.

Prerequisites

Deno 2.0+ installed (verify with deno --version )

PostgreSQL 16.0+ running locally or via a cloud provider

Basic knowledge of REST APIs, SQL, and TypeScript

Postman or curl for testing endpoints

Project Initialization

Create a new directory for your project and initialize a Deno project:

mkdir deno-oak-postgres-api && cd deno-oak-postgres-api deno init --force

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Install Oak 12.0 and the PostgreSQL…