How to Build Express JS Server with Typescript

If you're looking for a quick and easy way to get started with Express JS, then this video is for you! We'll walk you through the steps necessary to build an Express JS server with Typescript, and by the end of the video, you'll have a working server ready to go!

Setup

Initialize NPM Project

npm init -y
npm install --dev typescript ts-node @types/node

Adding tsconfig.json

npx tsc --init

tsconfig.json

{
  "compilerOptions": {
    "module": "NodeNext",
    "moduleResolution": "NodeNext",
    "target": "ES2020",
    "sourceMap": true,
    "outDir": "dist"
  },
  "include": [
    "src/**/*"
  ]
}

Configure nodemon to restart the server automatically when adding changes to files.

npm install --dev nodemon

nodemon.json

{
    "watch": [
        "src/**/*"
    ],
    "exec": "npm run start:dev",
    "ext": "js,ts,json"
}

Scripts on package.json

"scripts": {
    "build": "tsc",
    "start:dev": "ts-node src/index.ts",
    "dev": "nodemon",
    "start":"npm run build && node ./dist/index.js"
}

Install and config Express Js

npm install express dotenv

type definitions for express

npm install --dev @types/express

src/index.ts

import express from 'express';
import dotenv from 'dotenv'

dotenv.config()

const app = express()

app.get('/', (req, res) => {
    res.send("Welcome to TS Server Updated!!!")
})

app.listen(process.env.PORT,() => {
    console.log(`TS Server listening on ${process.env.PORT}`)
})

.env

PORT=3000

Finally

npm run dev to run dev mode
npm start to production mode

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