NODEJS

DEPRECATED: This article has been updated. Please see the latest version at SharePoint Framework (SPFx) Quick Start (Gulp toolchain for SPFx v1.21.0 and earlier)

This article left in place for historical reference.

BLAH BLAH BLAH! Just take me to the code!

Even though this post is more wordy than I like, this is the Quick Start guide I use when I am setting up a new computer to work with SPFx. Microsoft has a very detailed guide for SPFx setup at Set up your SharePoint Framework development environment. The Microsoft guide is good, but covers a lot of stuff that you might not need. If my guide doesn’t work for you, I would recommend that you go back to the official documentation. When working with SPFx, there are lots of additional tools that can be installed to enhance your development experience. For this Quick Start, I wanted to keep those tools to a minimum. I deviate from the “stock” installation from Microsoft with three tools that I use on a daily basis and feel are critical for developers that will be building many SPFx projects over long periods of time.

Recently, I had to set up a new development machine. These days, my primary development tasks are centered around SharePoint Framework (SPFx) solutions, so setting that up was my first goal. Everything was going smoothly until I tried to install the certificate that the development web server needs for developing SPFx solutions. From there, I descended down the certificate rabbit hole. After a couple of days of research and asking everyone I know for help, I was finally able to complete the task and decided that I better document it before I forget.

DEPRECATED: This article has been updated. Please see the latest version at SharePoint Framework (SPFx) Quick Start (Gulp toolchain for SPFx v1.21.0 and earlier)

This article left in place for historical reference.

For the several years now, I have concentrated on helping developers to get started coding in the SharePoint Framework (SPFx). My primary message has always been that, “despite it being a complete departure from previous coding approaches in the SharePoint, it’s not as difficult as it seems and you should just give it a try.” I am updating that presentation to include recent changes to SPFx as I prepare for upcoming engagements at North American Collaboration Summit (NACS) and ShareCloud Summit and will post it on this site when available.