Initialize a LoopBack Node.js Project through the CLI

[00:00] The first thing we do is install LoopBack CLI, globally. This will give us access to the lb commands that we can use to build LoopBack applications. Next, we will create a folder called eggheadloopback, and cd into it.

[00:13] We'll run lb app in our new directory to create our LoopBack API project. This will prompt us for a couple of things. First, it asks us the name of the application. We accept the defaults. This is the name of the directory that we are in.

[00:27] The second question is which version of LoopBack we'd like to use. We pick version 3.x, which is the current version. The last question is the kind of application that we'd like to create. We accept the default, which is an API server with local user authentication enabled.

[00:42] The basic project will be created, and the dependencies will be installed using npm-install. After the installation is finished, we can start the API by running node., or npm-start. This will print out two URLs, to the API and to the explorer.

[00:56] When we open the first URL in the browser, we see a status message. This message shows us when the API was started and the up time. The second URL shows us the API explorer that can be used to interact with the API.

[01:09] It currently shows one model, the user model. This built-in model is enabled because we selected an API server with local user authentication.