flexport-reference-architecture

Flexport Reference Architecture

Overview

Production reference architecture for Flexport logistics integrations. Three core services: Ingest (webhooks + polling), Core (business logic), and Expose (API + dashboard).

Architecture

┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                    Your Application                   │
├──────────────┬──────────────────┬─────────────────────┤
│  Ingest      │  Core            │  Expose             │
│              │                  │                     │
│  Webhook     │  Shipment        │  REST API           │
│  Receiver    │  Service         │  (your clients)     │
│              │                  │                     │
│  Scheduled   │  Product         │  Dashboard          │
│  Sync        │  Service         │  (Next.js/Astro)    │
│              │                  │                     │
│  Event       │  Invoice         │  Notifications      │
│  Queue       │  Service         │  (email/slack)      │
├──────────────┴──────────────────┴─────────────────────┤
│  Infrastructure: Cache (Redis) │ DB (Postgres) │ Queue │
├───────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│  Flexport API v2 (https://api.flexport.com)           │
└───────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Project Layout

flexport-integration/
├── src/
│   ├── flexport/
│   │   ├── client.ts           # Singleton API client
│   │   ├── types.ts            # Zod schemas for API responses
│   │   └── webhooks.ts         # Webhook signature + routing
│   ├── services/
│   │   ├── shipment.service.ts # Shipment CRUD + tracking
│   │   ├── product.service.ts  # Product catalog sync
│   │   ├── invoice.service.ts  # Commercial + freight invoices
│   │   └── booking.service.ts  # Booking creation + amendments
│   ├── jobs/
│   │   ├── sync-shipments.ts   # Scheduled full sync (hourly)
│   │   └── cache-warmup.ts     # Pre-populate caches on deploy
│   ├── api/
│   │   ├── routes.ts           # Express/Fastify routes
│   │   └── middleware.ts       # Auth, logging, error handling
│   └── config/
│       ├── flexport.ts         # API config per environment
│       └── cache.ts            # TTL settings per data type
├── tests/
│   ├── unit/                   # Mocked API tests
│   └── integration/            # Live API tests (CI only)
├── .env.example
└── docker-compose.yml          # Redis + Postgres for local dev

Data Flow

Flexport API ──webhook──> Ingest ──queue──> Core ──cache──> Expose
                                    │                │
                                    └── DB (Postgres) ┘

1. Ingest: Webhook receiver validates signatures, enqueues events
2. Core: Services process events, sync with Flexport API, update DB
3. Expose: API/dashboard reads from DB + cache, never directly from Flexport
4. Scheduled jobs: Hourly full sync catches any missed webhooks

Key Design Decisions

Decision	Choice	Rationale
Database	PostgreSQL	Structured logistics data, JSONB for flexible fields
Cache	Redis with 5min TTL	Shipment data changes infrequently
Queue	BullMQ	Retry, dead letter, rate limiting built in
API client	Custom fetch wrapper	No official SDK, typed with Zod
Webhook processing	Async via queue	Fast 200 response, process later

Resources

• Flexport Developer Portal
• Flexport API Reference

Next Steps

For multi-environment setup, see flexport-multi-env-setup.