Setup Node.js development environment
- 05 Mar, 2019
Setup a Node.js development environment is easy but when you need to work in a team, the best option is document all installation steps for everyone.
Every developer must use the same setup or things can be wrong. Bellow are small steps to setup a simple Node.js development environment
1 - Setup Node.js: https://nodejs.org/en/
2 - Setup VS Code: https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/setup/setup-overview
3 - Open VS Code create a folder and in this folder save an file as app.js
4 - Setup nodemon:
Nodemon is a utility that will monitor for any changes in your source and automatically restart your server. Perfect for development.
To install nodemom open a terminal window and go to the folder you created on step 3 and type npm install nodemon –save-dev on the terminal window . This will install nodemon as development dependency
5 - change package.json to start the application using nodemon
"name": "Node Development", "version": "1.0.0", "description": "Just another app", "main": "app.js", "scripts": { "test": "echo \"Error: no test specified\" && exit 1", "start": "nodemon app.js" }, "author": "Kenio Carvalho", "license": "ISC", "devDependencies": { "nodemon": "^1.18.10" } }
5 - Run npm init on the folder and install Express (npm install express –save) //Production dependency
6 Add the code below to app.js and sav, just to test the environment:
const express = require ('express');
const app = express();
app.use('/',(req,res,next)=>{
res.send('<h1>Hello from Expres</h1>')
});
app.listen(3000)
7 run npm start on the terminal
open the url localhost:3000 and you will se the page.