Install Node.js

If you don't have Node.js and NPM installed in your machine, here are instructions on how to install it.

Windows

Download the package at https://nodejs.org/en/download/. NPM comes bundled with it.

Mac OS X

Install Node.js via Homebrew. NPM comes bundled with it. brew install node

Linux

Install Node.js via your package manager (yum, apt)

Arch Linux

pacman -S nodejs npm

Ubuntu/Debian-based distros

curl -sL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_6.x | sudo -E bash -
sudo apt-get install -y nodejs

RHEL / Fedora / CentOS

curl --silent --location https://rpm.nodesource.com/setup_6.x | bash -
yum -y install nodejs

FreeBSD / OpenBSD

Install Node.js via the port system.

cd /usr/ports/www/node-devel/ && make install clean

Or via package manager.

pkg install node-devel

Initiate NPM

npm init

Running npm init will create a package.json file in your application root. This file will keep record of your application dependencies, as well as document application metadata, such as name, version, keywords and main (entry) file. The dependencies will be stored in a folder called node_modules.

Edit your package.json file

vi package.json

Replace the contents of your package.json with the contents below.

{
  "name": "mean-apz",
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "description": "The complete guide to creating a MEAN app from a to z",
  "main": "server.js",
  "scripts": {
    "test": "echo \"Error: no test specified\" && exit 1",
    "start": "node server.js"
  },
  "author": "",
  "license": "ISC",
  "dependencies": {
    "body-parser": "^1.15.2",
    "express": "^4.14.0",
    "mongodb": "^2.2.1",
    "dotenv": "^2.0.0"
  }
}

Save (:wq) then run

npm install

This will install all the packages listed under "dependencies" to a folder called node_modules.

On to our next step: Set up your Express server and routes