Getting started building with Begin is remarkably fast and simple. Begin’s local development environment emulates AWS to provide shorter local development cycles, creating a tighter feedback loop and maximizing developer velocity.

Prerequisites

While this guide assumes general familiarity with such things as text editors, terminal interfaces, git, and basic software development in JS with Node.js, you do not need to be a CTO to use Begin (or this guide)!

tl;dr, you’ll need:

• A (free) GitHub account
• Any computer running macOS, Windows, or Linux, with:
  • Node.js 14, or later
  • npm 6, or later

Platforms: macOS, Windows, and Linux

Begin supports local, offline development on just about all modern computers, including: macOS, Windows (10+), and Linux.

Runtimes: Node.js

Begin provisions and manages AWS infrastructure that runs on Node.js. Node.js 14.x is the default runtime, but you can configure Node.js 16.x to be the runtime on a per-project or per-function level.

Package management: NPM

Begin requires npm 6.x or later for local development. Check which version of npm you are running npm version. If you are not running npm 6.x or later, you’ll want to make sure to upgrade with: npm install npm@latest -g