Questions
18 of 25
1How do you build a reusable pagination and sorting query DTO that can be extended by feature-specific DTOs in NestJS?
2How do you use ClassSerializerInterceptor with @Exclude() and @Expose() to control response shape in NestJS?
3What versioning strategies does NestJS support and how do you enable versioning?
4How do you implement idempotency keys for POST requests to prevent duplicate operations in NestJS?
5How do you implement API rate limiting per user or per IP in NestJS?
6How do you handle raw body access for webhook signature verification in NestJS?
7How do you stream a large file or dataset as a response without loading it fully into memory in NestJS?
8How do you implement content negotiation so an endpoint returns JSON or CSV based on the Accept header in NestJS?
9How do you set a default version so unversioned requests are handled by a specific version in NestJS?
10How do you document DTO properties for Swagger and handle optional vs required fields in NestJS?
11How do you handle HATEOAS hypermedia links in NestJS REST responses?
12What decorators does NestJS provide for route parameters and how do they differ from query params?
13How do you handle a route where the param can be either a numeric ID or the literal string 'me' in NestJS?
14How do you handle multi-value query parameters (arrays) in NestJS?
15What is the difference between @Body(), @Body('field'), and using a full DTO class in NestJS?
16How do you implement a PATCH endpoint correctly with partial validation using PartialType in NestJS?
17How do you implement discriminated union body validation where the DTO shape depends on a type field in NestJS?
18How do you set HTTP status codes, response headers, and redirects in NestJS without using @Res()?
19What is the recommended file structure for versioned controllers in a NestJS project?
20How do wildcard and optional route segments work in NestJS?
21What is the difference between @Param('id') and @Param() with no argument in NestJS?
22How do you extract and type query parameters in NestJS including optional ones with defaults?
23How do you implement a standard paginated response envelope across all list endpoints in NestJS?
24How do you apply versioning at controller and method level in NestJS and how do you mark a route as version-neutral?
25How do you set up Swagger in a NestJS application and annotate your controllers?
NestJSNestJS
Basics
Modules
Decorators
Controllers
Dependency Injection
Providers
Architecture
Request Lifecycle
Middleware
Guards
Interceptors
Pipes
Filters
Exception Handling
API Design
GraphQL
Database and ORM
Microservices
Authentication and Authorization
18 / 25

How do you set HTTP status codes, response headers, and redirects in NestJS without using @Res()?

NestJS provides purpose-built decorators: @HttpCode() for custom status codes, @Header() for response headers, and @Redirect() for redirects. These keep the handler return value in NestJS's pipeline so interceptors and ClassSerializerInterceptor still work. Injecting @Res() bypasses the pipeline and should be avoided.

Status codes, headers, and redirects without @Res()
Response decorator rules:
  1. 1

    @HttpCode(status) overrides the default status — NestJS defaults to 200 for GET and 201 for POST.

  2. 2

    @Header('key', 'value') sets a static response header — cannot be computed at runtime.

  3. 3

    @Redirect(url, status) performs a redirect — return { url, statusCode } to override dynamically.

  4. 4

    All three decorators keep the handler in NestJS's pipeline — interceptors still wrap the response.

  5. 5

    Using @Res() instead switches to library-specific mode — interceptors and serialization stop working.