Write and Deploy a TypeScript Express.js App to Google Cloud Run using Terraform – part 1

Express.js is a popular web application framework for Node.js. It provides a robust set of features for building web applications and APIs. TypeScript, on the other hand, is a superset of JavaScript that adds static type checking and other features to the language. Google Cloud Run is a managed compute platform that automatically scales applications in response to traffic.

Step 1: Set up your development environment

Before we can start building and deploying our TypeScript Express.js app, we need to set up our development environment. This includes installing Node.js and npm, as well as setting up a project in Google Cloud Platform.

Install Node.js and npm

First, make sure you have Node.js and npm installed on your machine. You can download and install Node.js from the official website (https://nodejs.org/). Once Node.js is installed, npm will also be available.

Create a project in Google Cloud Platform

Go to the Google Cloud Platform console (https://console.cloud.google.com/) and create a new project. Note down the project ID as we will need it later.

Step 2: Scaffold a new TypeScript Express.js app

Now that our development environment is set up, we can start building our TypeScript Express.js app. We will use the `express-generator` package to scaffold a new Express.js app with TypeScript support.


npx express-generator --view=pug --typescript my-express-app
cd my-express-app
npm install


This will create a new Express.js app with TypeScript support and install all the necessary dependencies.

Step 3: Write and test the app locally

With our app scaffolded, we can now start writing code. Open the project in your favorite code editor and start implementing the features you need for your app. You can also test the app locally using the `npm start` command.

Conclusion

In this article, we have set up our development environment, scaffolded a new TypeScript Express.js app, and started writing code for our app. In part 2 of this series, we will cover how to deploy our app to Google Cloud Run using Terraform.