How to build an Express and Node.js app with Typescript

In this tutorial, you will learn how to set up a Node.js and Express project with Typescript and live auto-reloading. Note that this method also works for any kind of Node.js apps not just Node.js with Express.

Before getting started, note that this article assumes that you have basic knowledge of Javascript, Node.js, Typescript, Express.js

Setting Up

Create a new directory for our project and name is typescript-express and cd into the folder.

mkdir typescript-express
cd typescript-express

Now initialize our Node project using this command

npm init -y

The -y flag generates package.json with default values. Instead of asking for information for every field for package.json

Now we can add the dependencies.

Adding Dependencies

We need to add two frameworks Express and Typescript to our project. To do so run the following command.

npm install express
npm install typescript --save-dev

Because we are using Typescript we also need to install the types provided by Express.

npm install @types/express --save-dev

The Typescript-related dependencies are installed as devDependencies because we only need them when we build our app not when we run the app.

Configuring Typescript

Before we use Typescript we need to configure it. You will need to create a tsconfig.json file at the root directory to indicate that the directory is a Typescript project.

To create a tsconfig.json file simply run this command:

tsc --init

This command will create the tsconfig.json file with the default configuration. This file will contain a lot of settings, most of which are commented out. However, there are some settings that are important to know:

• target This specifies which ECMAScript version your code will compile to. By default, this is set to ES5 which is supported by most browsers. This allows you to use modern Javascript features without compromising browser support.
• module This specifies what module code generator to use. By default it uses common.js.
• outDir This specifies where the compiled js files should be.
• rootDir This specifies where your ts files are stored.

Now create a new folder src and create a file server.ts with this content:

import Express from 'express'

const app = Express()
const port = 3000

app.get('/', (req, res) => {
  res.send("Hello From Express and Typescirpt")
})

app.listen(port, () => {
  console.log(`Example app listening at http://localhost:${port}`)
})

And change the values of these two fields in tsconfig.json to the ones below:

...
"outDir": "./build", /* Redirect output structure to the directory. */
"rootDir": "./src",  /* Specify the root directory of input files. Use tocontrol the output directory structure with--outDir. */
...

Now if you run tsc command in the root directory a new directory build will popup containing the compiled js files.

Run node build/server.js to run your app.

If you run tsc --watch it will automatically compile your ts files to js whenever you make changes to your ts files.

Setting up auto-reload

Add two new dependency nodemon and concurrently to your project.

npm install nodemon concurrently --save-dev

nodemon will re-run your node app whenever the source files change.
concurrently will run both nodemon and tsc --watch at the same time.

Change the ourDir in your tsconfig.json to ./tmp.

...
"outDir": "./tmp",
...

Add these scripts in your package.json file.

...
"scripts": {
  "build": "tsc --outDir build",
  "serve": "concurrently --kill-others \"tsc --watch\" \"nodemon ./tmp/server.js \"",
  "start": "node build/server.js"
},
...

And remove the "main": "index.js" line from package.json.

Your package.json now should look like this:

{
  "name": "typescript-express",
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "description": "",
  "scripts": {
    "build": "tsc --outDir build",
    "dev": "concurrently --kill-others \"tsc --watch\" \"nodemon ./tmp/server.js \"",
    "start": "node build/server.js"
  },
  "keywords": [],
  "author": "",
  "license": "ISC",
  "dependencies": {
    "express": "^4.17.1"
  },
  "devDependencies": {
    "@types/express": "^4.17.13",
    "concurrently": "^6.2.1",
    "nodemon": "^2.0.12",
    "typescript": "^4.4.3"
  }
}

npm run build will build your app for production use.

npm run start will run your app for production use.

npm run dev will run your app for development with auto-reloading enabled.