Installing Express & Setting up the Server

🦁 Express.jsLesson 2Beginner

Getting a server up and running with Express takes only a few lines of code. Let's initialize a Node.js project and configure our entry server file.

1 Project Initialization & Installation

First, initialize a new Node project and install Express from the package registry:

Shell — Terminal Setup

# Create project directory
mkdir express-app && cd express-app

# Initialize npm project package file
npm init -y

# Install the Express package
npm install express

2 Creating index.js Entry Point

JavaScript — index.js

const express = require("express");
const app = express();
const PORT = process.env.PORT || 3000;

// Basic route entry point
app.get("/", (req, res) => {
  res.send("Hello, World from Express!");
});

// Start the listener
app.listen(PORT, () => {
  console.log(`Server is running on port ${PORT}`);
});

3 Code Challenge

Challenge: Write a start command script inside your package.json file, and run the server locally. Test the server locally in your browser at http://localhost:3000.