Last updated: Mar 25, 26 00:28 UTC | Permalink

This tutorial describes the basic steps needed to set up a development environment with NodeJS, TypeScript, and VisualStudio Code. At the end of this tutorial, you should have a complete local development environment that you can use to build and test code for this class.

Contents:

• Installing NodeJS
• Installing Visual Studio Code
• Hello, World in TypeScript

If you run into any difficulties following any of these steps, please post (in a non-private question) on Piazza.

Installing NodeJS

Node.js is a JavaScript runtime built on Chrome’s V8 JavaScript engine.

For this class, you will need Node.js version 24 (v24.12.0 was the latest version at time of writing, although any 24.x or 25.x version should work in theory).

There are many ways that you can install Node.js: for instance, you can use a package manager like snap or homebrew to install it; you can download an installer directly from the Node.js website, and you can, of course, build it from source.

Due to the complexity of running different Node.js versions on the same machine, we very strongly suggest using nvm, the node version manager. When language runtimes are in active development (like Node.js is), sometimes you end up needing to have multiple versions of Node.js installed, and different projects that you work on might require different versions of Node.js. These annoyances are quite rare, but when it happens that you need to have mutliple versions of Node.js installed, it’s super handy to have your system set up already so that installing multiple versions and switching between it is easy. You can use our instructions to set up nvm even if you have previously installed Node.js.

Installing NodeJS with NVM for Windows

Before starting the installation, make sure to kill your Visual Studio Code if you have it installed. To do that on Windows, open a command prompt(type cmd in the windows start bar, then select “Run as administrator”) and run the command taskkill.exe /IM code.exe.

1. Download nvm-setup.exe from the most recent release of nvm-windows (at time of writing this document, version was 1.2.2).

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2. Run the executable nvm-setup.exe.
   • This should open the nvm installation wizard.
3. Accept the license agreement and click next. Continue to accept the default choices for any remaining prompts, and click “install”. If you receive messages along the lines of “NodeJS version XYZ is already installed, would you like nvm to control this installation,” select “Yes”.
4. Upon completion, you will see the below window
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5. Open a command prompt with administrative privileges (type cmd in the windows start bar, then select “Run as administrator”).
6. Verify the installation, run the command nvm version
   • This should display the version of nvm installed.
   • 
7. Install Node.js version 24 using the command nvm install 24.

8. To use this version of NodeJS, run the command nvm use 24.

   • The output will look like:

     Now using node v24.12.0 (npm v11.6.2)

Troubleshooting with VSCode: Did you follow these instructions successfully, but find a “Command not found” error when you try to run npm in VSCode? Try this: Close VSCode completely. Re-open it. In your command shell in VSCode, try again. We have noticed that if you have VSCode open while installing nvm, it is possible that VSCode will not see the new software installation until it’s closed and re-opened. You can also confirm that VSCode correctly sees the NodeJS installation by running echo %PATH% in your windows command shell in VSCode: it should include an entry similar to C:\Program Files\nodejs.

Installation Steps (Linux / Mac)

This tutorial assumes you’re using the Bash or Zsh shells (if you don’t know what that means, you’re probably using one of those).

1. Run either curl -o- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nvm-sh/nvm/v0.40.3/install.sh | bash or If wget is installed then run wget -qO- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nvm-sh/nvm/v0.40.3/install.sh | bash.
   • For more details, refer to the NVM GitHub.
2. Close and reopen the active terminal.

   Note: You can also restart your terminal by running source ~/.bashrc or source ~/.zshrc depending on your shell.

3. Verify nvm is working by entering command -v nvm. If your terminal prints out nvm, it should be working. If you see nvm: command not found or no feedback, open a new terminal and trying again or restart from step 1.
4. Install the required version of Node.js by typing nvm install 24.

5. To use this version of NodeJS, run the command nvm use 24.

   Note: If this is your first time installing Node on your system, nvm will default to using version 24.x.x on every new terminal. You can run nvm ls to see the list of installed Node versions on your system.

   • The output will look like:

     Now using node v24.12.0 (npm v11.6.2)

Installing NVM when using the fish terminal (Linux / Mac)

Note: When using the Fish terminal, nvm.fish should be used to install nvm. This is not a fish wrapper for nvm rather it is written from scratch using fish. Current version of NVM is not supported on terminals that are running fish or have installed fish in the past.

1. Install nvm.fish using Fisher: fisher install jorgebucaran/nvm.fish
2. Restart fish by entering fish in your active terminal
3. Verify nvm is working by entering nvm -v
4. Install the required version of Node.js by typing nvm install 24.

Verification

1. Open a shell (for Linux / Mac) or windows powershell/command prompt (for Windows).
2. Run the command node -v

• This should print the current version of nodeJS installed (24.x.x).

1. Run the command npm -v

• This should print the current version of npm installed (v11.x.x).
• 

1. If you find that some other version is being used, run the command nvm use 24. For Linux / Mac, you can change the default to 24 by running the command nvm alias default 24.

Note: The alias command is not compatible with nvm.fish. Instead, you can add a default version with the command exec nvm use 24 in your ~/.config/fish/config.fish file.

Installing Visual Studio Code (VSCode)

Visual Studio Code is a lightweight but powerful source code editor which runs on your desktop and is available for Windows, macOS and Linux. It comes with built-in support for JavaScript, TypeScript and Node.js and has a rich ecosystem of extensions for other languages (such as C++, C#, Java, Python, PHP, Go) and runtimes (such as .NET and Unity). VSCode also supports importing hotkey configurations from most other text editors and IDEs. Read more here.

While you are required to use an IDE for this class, it is not mandatory to use VSCode: if you already are comfortable developing TypeScript or JavaScript in another suitable IDE (like IntelliJ), then you are welcome to continue to use that. However, VSCode is the “supported” option: if you struggle to get things like the linter set up correctly in VSCode, we will be happy to help you. However, we can’t provide such support for all IDEs.

Pre-requisites

• Administrative access on the host machine for software installation.

Installation Steps (Windows)

1. Download the VSCode installer from the VSCode website.
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2. Run the installer to start the installation wizard for VSCode
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3. Accept the license agreement and click next.
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4. Choose the installation directory of your choice and click next.
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5. Click next on the select start menu folder screen.
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6. Tick all check boxes on the select additional tasks menu and click next.
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7. Review the settings on the the “Ready to install” screen and click Install to begin installation.
8. Once the installation is complete, you will see the below screen and you are ready to use VSCode.
   • 

Installation (Mac)

1. Download the VSCode installer from the VSCode website.
2. Open the downloaded .zip file named along the lines of VSCode-darwin/-arm64/-universal.
3. Drag the extracted Visual Studio Code app to the Applications folder (found at /Applications). Do not skip this step!
4. Open VSCode from Launchpad or Spotlight Search.

Alternatively, you can also install Visual Studio Code using homebrew using brew install --cask visual-studio-code which will install it as a normal application in your Mac.

Installation (Linux)

• The above instructions for Windows/Mac should also work, but VSCode is also provided as a snap package

1. Install snap if you haven’t already by running sudo apt update and then sudo apt install snapd.
2. Install VSCode by running sudo snap install --classic code.
3. Open VSCode as an application on your desktop.

Additional Extensions

VSCode comes with a rich set of extensions to aid in software development. Below is a list of extensions we strongly recommend.

1. Prettier - code formatter
2. ESLint - linter for JavaScript/TypeScript
3. Vitest - run, debug, and watch Vitest tests directly in VS Code (see the Unit Testing tutorial for detailed setup instructions)

To install an extension:

1. Click on the extensions tab on the left in VSCode (it looks like a pile of boxes, as shown here)
   • 
2. Search for the extension (e.g. “ESLint”)
3. Click on Install.
4. Done!
   • 

Additional Settings (Optional)

If you click through enough “Settings” menus, like this on a Mac (File > Preferences > Settings on Windows):

You should see a screen like this:

The following settings are recommended:

1. “Files: Auto Save” — set to “afterDelay”
2. “Editor: Format On Save” - enable
3. “Prettier: Document Selectors” - add _.ts and _.tsx
4. “Editor: Bracket Pair Colorization” — enable

Getting Started With Typescript

Typescript is a superscript of JavaScript which adds type information and other features.

Pre-requisites

• NodeJS
• VSCode (recommended but not required)

Hello World

1. Create a new directory and open it with VSCode.
2. Create a new file called hello-world.ts.
   • You can do this from within VSC by typing ctrl + N, but this is not necessary.

3. Add the following code to the file:

   let message = "Hello, World!";
   console.log(message);
   message = "Goodbye, World!";
   console.log(message);
   

4. Open the terminal with ctrl + ~ or ctrl + ‘`’ (ctrl-backtick)

   • Ensure that you are in the same directory as hello-world.ts.

5. Run the command node hello-world.ts.

   • This will give the result below.
   • 

6. Modify your file to produce a type error by trying to write a number to the variable message that has type string:

   • observe the message that you get.
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7. Run the command node hello-world.ts. What happens?

Troubleshooting with VSCode: Did you follow these instructions successfully, but find a “Command not found” error when you try to run npm in VSCode? Try this: Close VSCode completely. Re-open it. In your command shell in VSCode, try again. We have noticed that if you have VSCode open while installing nvm, it is possible that VSCode will not see the new software installation until it’s closed and re-opened. You can also confirm that VSCode correctly sees the NodeJS installation by running echo %PATH% in your windows command shell in VSCode: it should include an entry similar to C:\Program Files\nodejs.