Node.js Quickstart - Convex Backend

import sampleData from "!!raw-loader!@site/../private-demos/quickstarts/nodejs/sampleData.jsonl"; import tasks from "!!raw-loader!@site/../private-demos/quickstarts/nodejs/convex/tasks.js"; import script from "!!raw-loader!@site/../private-demos/quickstarts/nodejs/script.js";

Learn how to query data from Convex in a Node.js project.

For instructions for subscriptions instead of point-in-time queries and more project configurations (TypeScript, bundlers, CJS vs ESM) see Node.js notes.

<StepByStep> <Step title="Create a new npm project"> Create a new directory for your Node.js project.

```sh
mkdir my-project && cd my-project && npm init -y && npm pkg set type="module"
```

</Step> <Step title="Install the Convex client and server library"> Install the `convex` package which provides a convenient interface for working with Convex from JavaScript.

Also install the `dotenv` library for loading `.env` files.

```sh
npm install convex dotenv
```

</Step> <Step title="Set up a Convex dev deployment"> Next, run `npx convex dev`. This will prompt you to log in with GitHub, create a project, and save your production and deployment URLs.

It will also create a `convex/` folder for you
to write your backend API functions in. The `dev` command
will then continue running to sync your functions
with your dev deployment in the cloud.


```sh
npx convex dev
```

</Step> <Step title="Create sample data for your database"> In a new terminal window, create a `sampleData.jsonl` file with some sample data.

<Snippet
  source={sampleData}
  title="sampleData.jsonl"
/>

</Step> <Step title="Add the sample data to your database"> Now that your project is ready, add a `tasks` table with the sample data into your Convex database with the `import` command.

```
npx convex import --table tasks sampleData.jsonl
```

</Step> <Step title="Expose a database query"> Add a new file `tasks.js` in the `convex/` folder with a query function that loads the data.

Exporting a query function from this file
declares an API function named after the file
and the export name, `api.tasks.get`.

<Snippet
  source={tasks}
  title="convex/tasks.js"
/>

</Step> <Step title="Connect the script to your backend"> In a new file `script.js`, create a `ConvexHttpClient` using the URL of your development environment.

<Snippet
  source={script}
  title="script.js"
/>

</Step> <Step title="Run the script"> Run the script from the same directory and see the list of tasks logged to the terminal.

```sh
node script.js
```

</Step> </StepByStep>

See the complete Node.js documentation.