Installing TypeScript & Setup — TypeScript Tutorial

Installing TypeScript

TypeScript requires Node.js and npm. Once you have those installed, you can install TypeScript globally or as a project dependency.

Example

# Install TypeScript globally
npm install -g typescript

# Check version
tsc --version

# Or install as dev dependency
npm init -y
npm install --save-dev typescript

Your First TypeScript File

TypeScript files use the .ts extension. You write TypeScript code, then compile it to JavaScript using the tsc command.

Example

// hello.ts
function greet(name: string): string {
  return `Hello, ${name}!`;
}

console.log(greet("World"));

// Compile: tsc hello.ts
// Run: node hello.js

tsconfig.json

The tsconfig.json file configures how TypeScript compiles your code. Create one with tsc --init.

Example

// Generate tsconfig.json
// tsc --init

// Basic tsconfig.json
{
  "compilerOptions": {
    "target": "ES2020",
    "module": "commonjs",
    "strict": true,
    "outDir": "./dist",
    "rootDir": "./src"
  },
  "include": ["src/**/*"]
}