Setup a TypeScript Project Fast

Create a New Project in 30 seconds!

Learn how to install TypeScript and run your first file!

A lot of people think getting started with TypeScript is scary at first, especially when you're used to JavaScript.

This article will guide you through setting up a TypeScript project, allowing you to start reaping these benefits immediately and testing out TypeScript today.

1) Initialize Your Project

Let's create a new directory for our project and initialize it with npm:

mkdir typescript-project
cd typescript-project
npm init -y

Note: The -y flag (on npm init) accepts all the default setup options for the npm project setup.

2) Install TypeScript

We can add TypeScript as a development dependency to our project by using the following command:

npm install typescript --save-dev

3) Create a TypeScript Configuration File

You need a special configuration file named tsconfig.json file in a directory that indicates that the directory is the root of a TypeScript project.

We can generate it easily with some good defaults with the following command:

npx tsc --init

Create your first TS file

You can start writing TypeScript!

Create a new file in your project called index.ts (don't forget the extension is ts for TypeScript).

Optional: Run your script

To run your script, let's add one more package called ts-node:

npm install ts-node --save-dev

Now that it's installed, we can run the following command to run our index.ts:

node --loader ts-node/esm index.ts

Optional: Compiling your TS

You can compile your TypeScript to JavaScript by running the following in your root folder:

npx tsc

If you want to compile your files automatically, run the command with the --watch flag. Here's the full command:

npx tsc --watch 

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