The first thing we do when starting a new Node.js project is create a package.json file.

package.json is the configuration file used by the program npm, the Node Package Manager. It is used to configure lots of things in your project including package dependencies, automating tasks, and how to publish it as a package.

However the only thing we are going to use it for in this workshop is saving our project dependencies.

Creating a new package.json file

First create a folder for our project and call it whatever you want, I called mine learn-nodejs-workshop so that’s what I will use in the examples.

To create your new package.json file:

1. Open your terminal
2. Make sure you are in your new project folder. Use the pwd command to check which folder you are in, and the cd command to change folders.
3. Run the command npm init -y.

This command creates a new package.json file with default values and displays it for you.

Your file will look something like:

{
  "name": "learn-nodejs-workshop",
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "description": "",
  "main": "index.js",
  "scripts": {
    "test": "echo \"Error: no test specified\" && exit 1"
  },
  "keywords": [],
  "author": "",
  "license": "ISC"
}

The syntax in this file is called JSON (pronounced like ‘Jason’) which is short for Javascript Object Notation. It’s a way of representing Javascript data that is easy to read and write to and we use it a lot for saving and sending information. We talk more about JSON in later steps.

Now we have a package.json file, let’s add a dependency.