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Setting Up a Node.js Project: Best Practices for Beginners
2 min readFeb 1, 2025
1. Installing Node.js and npm
Before setting up a Node.js project, you need to install Node.js and npm (Node Package Manager).
- Download from nodejs.org
- Verify installation:
node -v
npm -v
2. Initializing a New Node.js Project
Create a new project folder and initialize a package.json file:
mkdir my-node-app
cd my-node-app
npm init -y
- This generates a package.json file, which stores project metadata and dependencies.
3. Setting Up a Git Repository
Initialize a Git repository for version control:
git init
echo "node_modules/" >> .gitignore
- Create a .gitignore file to exclude unnecessary files like
node_modules
.
4. Installing Essential Dependencies
Depending on your project, install required packages.
For an Express.js app:
npm install express
For development dependencies (like Nodemon for auto-reloading):
npm install --save-dev…