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

Resources

• Flexport Developer Portal
• Flexport API Reference

Next Steps

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