Scaffolding for a minimal TypeScript Node.js Express project

Why?

• I'm tired of scaffolding projects from scratch and want a modern starting point.
• I have not found AI to be as good at scaffolding projects as it is at generating code within an existing project.

Globals Dependencies

You will need to install these globally (I recommend using nvm):

• Node.js 22+

Goals:

• TypeScript ESM
• Eslint for consistency
• Prettier for formatting
• Jest for testing
• Express 5

esbuild Notes

• esbuild does not support emitDecoratorMetadata in tsconfig.json

Notes:

• Scaffolding testing is out of scope for now. Maybe in a future update.
• Express 5 requires Node.js 18 or higher, but since this is a reference repo for 2025 and onward, I'm using Node.js 22.
• tsx does not perform type checking. VS Code can do that for you locally, and your CI/CD pipeline can do that for you during builds.
• Note that tsx uses esbuild under the hood
• Express 5 was finally released in October 2024, so it may have limited community support.

References:

• https://expressjs.com/2024/10/15/v5-release.html
• https://www.trevorlasn.com/blog/whats-new-in-express-5
• The VS Code launch.json file is from https://github.com/withKonvSuu/learn-tsx
• https://esbuild.github.io/content-types/#javascript-caveats
• https://esbuild.github.io/content-types/#typescript-caveats