How to use ESLint in Node.js Applications?

ESLint is an open source JavaScript linting utility that help you overcome developer errors as JavaScript is loosely-typed language. There are quite a few options such as JSHint and JSCS in Javascript community for code linting and this post doesn’t suggest that you cannot use them. ESLint is designed to have all rules completely pluggable. That’s one of the primary reasons it came into existence. It allows developers to create their own linting rules. Every rule provided in the is standalone rule and a developer at any point can decide whether to use a specific rule or not. ESLint official guide Installing : You must have Node.js installed in order to access ESLint via it’s package manager . Note npm For local installation to a project directory: For a global installation in your working system: ESLint will now be available via command in your terminal. eslint Configuration Easiest way to configure it to setup a JSON file where are all the linting rules can be described. .eslintrc An example of : .eslintrc If you installed eslint globally, you can also generate config file using Other case, if you have installed it locally to a project, you will need to type in your terminal: In both cases, you will be prompted with set of basic questions to generate file. .eslintrc An example of file generated after above prompt: For detailed information on Configuration, . read here Rules Rules in ESLint are added individually. No rules are enforced by default. You have to specify rules explicitly, then only it will be enabled for the linting process. You can find a complete list of rules in the official documentation here After deciding which rules to include, you have to set there error levels. Each error level can be defined as following: - Turn the rule off 0 - Turn the rule on as a warning 1 - Turn the rule on as an error 2 The difference between an error and a warning is the exit code that eslint will have when it finishes. If any errors are found, eslint will exit with a exit code, otherwise it will exit with a . If you are linting within a build step this allows you to control which rules should "break your build" and which ones should be considered as warnings. 1 0 Learn how to . configure rules in detail here Environments The code you are writing might be suitable for a particular environment such as, you might be writing a REST API in Node.js application using Express Framework (Sinatra) and the frontend of that application is going to be built in AngularJS. Two different projects, two different environments and both can have separate eslint configurations in one file even though the client and the server are under one project directory that is been considered as root of your project. How is it done? By setting the environment id to true in the section of . "env" .eslintrc Linting ESLint comes with a command line interface (CLI) to lint your files or directory. The output generated will be grouped by file, and will specify the number, warning/error, reason for the error, and the name of the rule for each failure. line:column Use ESLint with your preferred Coding Style ESLint personally does not promote any coding style. You can setup file to enforce coding style using that you like. .eslintrc style rules You can also use ESLint with Style guides such as . You have to use extra plugin for that. The full guide can be found here ( ). JavaScript Standard Style https://github.com/feross/eslint-config-standard To add a plugin to : .eslintrc Some plugins for popular libraries: | Angular React Another plugin, I find very useful is just to maintain code consistency over a large/open-source project. one variable per var 💚 Thank you for reading. If you find this post useful, please hit the readers_. If you’d like to talk about it, ping me on_ button so this story can reach out to more Twitter or check my other articles on Node.js . Want to receive more articles like this one? Subscribe me here . Sometimes, I send “never seen before” content to my subscribers.