Node.js

JavaScript on the server: modules, files, HTTP.

Node.js is taught here in 13 lessons, running from Node.js: getting started through to Security, performance and deployment. Each lesson takes one topic, shows the working code, and links onward to the next, so the course can be read straight through in order.

Lessons

1. Node.js: getting startedRunning JavaScript outside the browser, the event loop that makes it scale, and the module systems you will meet.
2. npm, packages and scriptspackage.json, semantic versioning, lockfiles, and the scripts and workspaces that keep a project reproducible.
3. Files and paths in NodeAsync file I/O with promises, streams for large data, and building paths that work on every platform.
4. Building an HTTP serverA server with no framework, routing by hand, reading the body, and when to reach for Express-style libraries.
5. Modules, ESM and CommonJSimport versus require, the package.json type field, conditional exports, and how the two module systems talk to each other.
6. Events, streams and buffersEventEmitter patterns, readable, writable and transform streams, backpressure, and the byte-level rules of Buffer.
7. Async patterns, timers and the event loopPromises and async/await discipline, the timer functions, scheduling order between nextTick, microtasks and setImmediate, and cancellation.
8. Configuration, environment and CLI argumentsprocess.env, env files and --env-file, a config shape that fails fast, and parsing command-line arguments properly.
9. Errors, logging and debuggingCustom error classes with cause chaining, exit codes that mean something, structured logs, and the built-in inspector.
10. Testing with the built-in test runnernode:test and assert, suites and subtests, mocks and fake timers, watch mode, coverage and global setup.
11. Databases, HTTP clients and external servicesfetch with timeouts, retries and idempotency, connection pooling, migrations and transaction boundaries.
12. Worker threads, child processes and clusteringMoving CPU-bound work off the event loop, running other programs safely, scaling across cores, and shutting every process type down cleanly.
13. Security, performance and deploymentValidate input at the boundary, limit and time every call, profile before optimising, and ship a small container that shuts down cleanly.

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Last refreshed 2026-09-18.