Installation

• Meet Supercharge
  • Supercharge Packages
  • Using TypeScript
  • Developer Experience
• System Requirements
• Creating a new Supercharge App
  • Create a .env File
  • Running the Supercharge Server

Meet Supercharge

Supercharge is a Node.js framework with a stylish, purposeful syntax. Supercharge as a web application framework provides the starting point for your project. It gives the structure for you to focus on creating your app.

Supercharge Packages

The Supercharge framework consists of multiple core packages. All core packages are located inside the packages directory of the framework’s GitHub repository.

Each package provides a specific functionality, like the application instance, a configuration store, an IOC container, an HTTP server and router, the hashing and encryption services, and so on. Combining all packages in a structured way creates a Supercharge application.

Every release of the framework’s core packages have the same version number. Using the same version for core packages reduces the cognitive load in your application because you can bump all packages to the same version without worrying if releases work together or if you need to bump another package, too.

Here’s an example: when we tag a release version 3.8.0 for @supercharge/core, you’ll find the same 3.8.0 release for all other core packages (like @supercharge/http, @supercharge/session, @supercharge/view, and so on) as well.

Using TypeScript

Supercharge is written in TypeScript. Writing the framework in TypeScript automatically creates type definitions. These type definitions allow your code editor or IDE to provide IntelliSense. Using IntelliSense as a way for automatic code suggestions increases your productivity because you don’t need to look up all available methods and functionalities. Your editor or IDE could also show errors right in front of you while working on code.

Developer Experience

We’re striving to provide a delicious developer experience. You’ll notice that most of the time the framework provides a handy method for basic functionality you would need to build yourself in other frameworks. Also, we usually return an instance of this from methods allowing you to create fluent method chains. You’ll recognize fluent methods when working with the framework.

System Requirements

The Supercharge framework has some system requirements. Ensure that your system has the following dependencies installed:

• Node.js v16 or higher
• NPM or Yarn for package management

Check your installed Node.js version using this command:

node -v
# v16.15.1

If you don’t have Node.js 16.x (or higher) installed, you can download the latest version on the official nodejs.org website.

Also, version managers like n or nvm help you to install and manage different Node.js versions on your machine.

Creating a new Supercharge App

Supercharge provides a convenient app scaffolder to create a new application. You can run the scaffolding using npm init. The following command creates a new Supercharge app in the hello-supercharge directory:

npm init @supercharge/app@latest hello-supercharge

The app creation process may take some seconds. You’ll continuously see updates what’s currently happening when creating your app.

Create a .env File

You must create a .env file after creating a new application. We provide a .env.example file that you can copy and rename.

At this point, it’s not necessary to adjust the values in the .env file. You can do that later.

Running the Supercharge Server

Starting your Supercharge server is as simple as this:

npm run dev

This will run Supercharge’s HTTP server on the port that is defined in your .env file. The default port is 3000. Once started, you can visit your new app on localhost:3000.