Environment Setup

To get started with Ionic Framework, the only requirement is a Node & npm environment.

Of course, a code editor is also required. Visual Studio Code is recommended. Visual Studio Code is a free, batteries-included text editor made by Microsoft.

Terminal

Much of Ionic development requires familiarity with the command line. If you're new to the command line, see this Blog Post for a quick introduction.

In general, we recommend using the built-in terminals. Many third-party terminals work well with Ionic, but may not be supported.

For Windows, Command Prompt and PowerShell are supported. WSL is known to work with Ionic, but may not be supported.
For macOS, the built-in Terminal app is supported.

Git Bash (from git-scm.com) does not support TTY interactivity and is not supported by Ionic.

Almost all tooling for modern JavaScript projects is based in Node.js. The download page has prebuilt installation packages for all platforms. We recommend selecting the LTS version to ensure best compatibility.

Node is bundled with npm, the package manager for JavaScript.

To verify the installation, open a new terminal window and run:

$ node --version
$ npm --version

Permission errors are common on macOS when installing global packages with npm. If you get an EACCES error, see Resolving Permission Errors.

Git

Although not required, the version control system Git is highly recommended.

Git is often accompanied by a Git Host, such as GitHub, in which case additional setup is required. Follow the tutorial from the Git Host's documentation to set up Git:

GitHub: Set up Git
GitLab: Installing Git
Bitbucket: Install Git

Otherwise, follow the official installation instructions. The command-line utility can be downloaded from the download page.

To verify the installation, open a new terminal window and run:

$ git --version

Git GUI

Git is a command-line utility, but there are many GUI clients available. GitHub Desktop is recommended, and works well with GitHub.