npm is the Node Package Manager. It ships with node, we run it with the command line npm. We use npm for:
- Initializing a nodejs project (makes `package.json`)
- Installing packages (like `express`)
- Running scripts in your project (`npm start` will run the right file)
- Managing meta data for your project (github information, author names, description, version, etc)
To start a project from scratch we run npm init and hit enter for each question, or npm init --yes to accept all defaults.
To install a dependency to your project, run npm install express (to install express). This will download and store in node_modules/ and record the entry in package.json
The .gitignore file contains file patterns that git should ignore, like node_modules/
PS: Any file that starts with a period ("dot") is treated as a hidden or special file on unix systems. They are often hidden by default from ls unless you specify ls -a ("list all files") and sometimes hidden by VS Code!
For example, there is actually a hidden .git folder that VS Code purposefully hides but it's there!