Installation
Your first Athenna project
Prerequisites
Before scaffolding a new Athenna project, first you need to install Node.js.
We recommend using nvm to do that.
Click here to install nvm and get npm and Node.js running on your machine
Installing via package manager
We want it to be as easy as possible to get started with Athenna. With that in mind, we developed a CLI to assist in the creation of a new project, as well as the installation of new components.
npm install -g @athenna/cli
Then you can run one of these commands to generate your project:
- http
- cli
- slim
athenna new my-project-name
athenna new my-project-name --type http
athenna new my-project-name --type cli
athenna new my-project-name --type slim
Initial configuration
All the configuration files for the Athenna framework are stored in the config directory. Each option is documented,
so feel free to look through the files and get familiar with the options available to you.
Athenna needs almost no additional configuration out of the box. You are free to get started developing! However, you
may wish to review the config/app.js file and its documentation. It contains several options such as debug, environment
and locale that you may wish to change according to your application.
Environment configuration
Many of Athenna configuration options values depends on whether your application is running, on your local machine or
on a production server. Many important configuration values are defined using the .env file that exists at the root
of your application.
Your .env file should not be committed to your application's source control, since each developer/server using your
application could require a different environment configuration. Furthermore, this would be a security risk in the event
an intruder gains access to your source control repository, since any sensitive credentials would get exposed.
tip
For more information about the .env file and environment configuration, check out the full configuration documentation.
Directory/Language configuration
By default, Athenna uses the modern EcmaScript modules. When you run the npm start command, the Artisan will always
read your bootstrap/main.js file to start your application.
You can run your application using npm run start:dev to run in watch mode. The npm test command will always look
for your tests/main.js file to run your tests.