Set up your toolchain

One runtime, one package manager

Swift needed Xcode. Node needs the Node runtime and npm (which ships with it):

1. Node 24 LTS — the runtime plus npm (macOS: brew install node, or the installer from nodejs.org). Use an LTS version for anything real.
2. The Nest CLI, once you reach module 05: npm i -g @nestjs/cli.

A Node project is defined by a package.json at its root — the equivalent of Package.swift. It names the project, lists dependencies, and defines the scripts you run. You create it with npm init.