development-setup.md

Step 1 - Set Up Your Project Environment

Here’s how you can set up your Node.js project with the required dependencies:

1. Initialize the Project:

Create a package.json file for managing your project dependencies.

npm init -y

2. Install Required Packages:

Add essential libraries and tools for your application:

npm install express       # Web framework for building APIs
npm install cors          # Enables Cross-Origin Resource Sharing
npm install dotenv        # Manages environment variables
npm install mongoose      # MongoDB object modeling tool

3. Add TypeScript Support:

Install TypeScript type definitions for the above libraries:

npm install @types/express @types/node @types/cors --save-dev

4. Install Development Tools:

Add nodemon for automatic server restarts during development:

npm install -D nodemon

Step 2 — Adding TypeScript

We need to add a typescript package in our project, so that we can use the TypeScript compiler and other related tools.

npm i -D typescript

This command will add typescript package as a dev-dependency in our project.

Now, we need to add typescript config file, for that we will use the below given command.

tsc --init

This will create a tsconfig.json file, with the default compiler configurations shown in the image below.

In the tsconfig.json file, remove the comments on the rootDir option and modify it, to set src as root directory for typescript.

"rootDir": "./src",

Similarly, do this for outDir option as well

"outDir": "./dist",

All .js files will be created in this build folder after compiling the .ts files which are inside the src folder.

Step 3 — Adding Eslint

For adding eslint, we will install the required packages given below.

npm i -D eslint@9.14.0 @eslint/js @types/eslint__js typescript typescript-eslint

Now make a eslint.config.mjs file in the root of the project director.

npx eslint --init

At this point you may see that your version of eslint: "^9.14.0" has been changed to eslint: "^9.15.0"

if that happens remove the eslint : npm remove eslint Then re-install: npm i -D eslint@9.14.0

Now add the following code inside it.

{
    ignores: ["node_modules", "dist"],
    rules: {
      "no-unused-vars": "error",
    },
  },

import globals from 'globals';
import pluginJs from '@eslint/js';
import tseslint from 'typescript-eslint';

/** @type {import('eslint').Linter.Config[]} */
export default [
  { files: ['**/*.{js,mjs,cjs,ts}'] },
  { languageOptions: { globals: globals.node } },
  pluginJs.configs.recommended,
  ...tseslint.configs.recommended,
  {
    ignores: ['node_modules', 'dist'],
    rules: {
      'no-unused-vars': 'off',
      '@typescript-eslint/no-unused-vars': 'error',
      'no-unused-expressions': 'error',
      'prefer-const': 'error',
      'no-undef': 'error',
      'no-console': 'warn',
    },
  },
];

Now in the terminal, you can run npm eslint . You can see that eslint is working.

We can also add scripts for eslint in the package.json file.

"scripts": {
"lint": "eslint src/**/*.ts",
"lint:fix": "eslint src/**/*.ts --fix"
},

Step 4 — Adding Prettier

Add the prettier package in your project.

npm i -D --exact prettier

Now create .prettierrc and .prettierignore file in the root of your project.

Include basic configurations for prettier in the .prettierrc file.

{
  "semi": true,
  "singleQuote": true
}

Also, we need to tell prettier which files to not format So inside .prettierignore include the following.

dist;

Finally we can add scripts for prettier as well in the package.json file.

"format": "prettier . --write"

Step 5 — Adding Ts-Node-Dev

ts-node-dev Installation and Usage

Why install and use ts-node-dev?

Installation:

• ts-node-dev is a development dependency for TypeScript projects.

Install it using:

npm i ts-node-dev --save-dev

Usage:

• It runs TypeScript files directly, so you don’t need to manually compile them using tsc.

• It automatically restarts the server when file changes are detected, making development faster.

• Command to start your server:

npx ts-node-dev --transpile-only src/server.ts

Project Scripts

"scripts": {
  "build": "tsc",                                                   # Compiles TypeScript files to JavaScript
  "start:dev": "npx ts-node-dev --transpile-only src/server.ts",    # Runs the server in development mode with hot-reloading
  "start:prod": "node ./dist/server.js",                            # Starts the server in production mode
  "start": "nodemon ./dist/server.js",                              # Runs the production build with automatic restarts
  "lint": "eslint src/**/*.ts",                                     # Checks code style and errors using ESLint
  "lint:fix": "eslint src/**/*.ts --fix",                           # Fixes code style issues automatically
  "format": "prettier . --write"                                    # Formats code consistently with Prettier
}