KickJS Query Engine Deep Dive: Filtering, Sorting, Search, and Pagination with MongoDB

KickJS Query Engine Deep Dive: Filtering, Sorting, Search, and Pagination with MongoDB When you're building an API with 60+ endpoints and 10+ list views, you can't afford inconsistency. Some endpoints return everything. Some paginate but don't filter. Some sort by createdAt , others by name , and the client has no idea which is which. We solved this in Vibed — a Jira-like task management backend — by building a querying pipeline that flows from URL query strings, through KickJS's ctx.paginate() , into MongoDB helpers, and back out as a standardized paginated response. Every list endpoint works the same way. Here's how the full pipeline works. The Query Pipeline Client request GET /api/v1/projects/abc/tasks?status=eq:open&priority=in:high,critical&sort=-dueDate&search=login&page=2&limit=10 │ ▼ ctx.paginate(fetcher, TASK_QUERY_CONFIG) │ ├── ctx.qs(config) parses the query string │ → filters: [{ field: 'status', operator: 'eq', value: 'open' }, ...] │ → sort: [{ field: 'dueDate', directio