Create an NodeJs Server in Typescript

If you're a beginner on typescript or some veteran who tends to forget how to setup a typescript server the you've come to the right place.

Here are the steps to create a typescript server up and running:

• Make a folder then, initialize the node project

npm init -y

• Install dependencies, in this case I'm installing expressjs as my web app framework but feel free to use others like fastify

npm i express cors dotenv
npm i -D typescript @types/node @types/express concurrently

• Initialize tsconfig

npx tsc --init

• Edit tsconfig.json

"outDir": "./dist"

• Edit package.json scripts

"scripts": {
"build": "npm install typescript && npx tsc",
"start": "node dist/index.js",
"dev": "concurrently \"npx tsc --watch\" \"nodemon -q dist/index.js\""
}

• Create a file named index.ts, this will server as the root file for your server. Paste this inside index.ts.

import express, { Express } from 'express';
import dotenv from 'dotenv';
import cors from 'cors';
import http from 'http';
dotenv.config();

const app: Express = express();
const port = process.env.PORT ?? 5905;
app.use(cors());
const server = http.createServer(app);

server.listen(port, () => {
  console.log(`⚡️[server]: Server is running at http://localhost:${port}`);
});

• Run build

npm run build

• Finally run the server

npm run dev