Quickly Create and Complete Your First Nuxt3 Project in 5 Minutes

Before diving into the world of Nuxt 3, ensuring your local development environment is properly set up is crucial. Nuxt 3 is built on top of modern web technologies including Vue 3, Vite, and Nitro, which means it requires a stable and modern Node.js environment.
To get started smoothly, make sure your machine has Node.js (version 18 LTS or higher) installed, along with your preferred package manager (npm, pnpm, or yarn).

Open your terminal and run the following commands to verify your current versions:

node -v
npm -v

If your Node.js version falls below the required threshold, we strongly recommend upgrading to the latest LTS release to avoid compatibility issues during the installation process.

Step 1: Scaffolding Your First Nuxt 3 Project

With your environment ready, you can create a brand new Nuxt 3 application using the official nuxi CLI tool. Run the following command in your terminal, replacing my-nuxt-app with your desired project name:

npx nuxi@latest init my-nuxt-app

This command will automatically download the necessary template files, set up the directory structure, and prepare your workspace.

Step 2: Installing Dependencies

Navigate into your newly created project directory and install the required dependencies using your package manager of choice:

cd my-nuxt-app

# Using npm
npm install

# Using pnpm
pnpm install

# Using yarn
yarn install

Step 3: Running the Development Server

Once the installation is complete, you are ready to boot up the local development server. Execute the following command:

npm run dev -- -o

(Note: You can also use pnpm dev -o or yarn dev -o depending on your package manager.)

The -o flag will automatically open the application in your default web browser. You should see the welcome page of Nuxt 3 running locally at http://localhost:3000.

Congratulations! You have successfully created, configured, and launched your very first Nuxt 3 project in just a few minutes. You are now ready to start building fast, server-side rendered Vue applications with ease.