The first step will be for us to generate a package.json file with some basic information about the project. The package.json file holds all project information, such as the project version, author, license etc. which we will generate now.

This file also holds information on production and development dependencies (other node modules) as well as configuration information.

Generating the package

Yarn has a wizard to generate the initial package for you, you can start this by running:

yarn init

Run this command and enter information into the prompts given, it will look something like this:

yarn init v1.3.2
question name (a-map-of-thrones): a-map-of-thrones
question version (1.0.0):
question description: A React Tutorial of Ice and Fire
question entry point (index.js):
question repository url (git@github.com:BlakeSimpson/learning-react-and-redux-tutorial.git):
question author (Blake Simpson <blakersim@gmail.com>):
question license (MIT):
question private:
success Saved package.json
✨  Done in 55.16s.

If you now look at the files of the generated package.json file it will look like:

{
  "name": "a-map-of-thrones",
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "description": "A React Tutorial of Ice and Fire",
  "main": "index.js",
  "repository":
    "git@github.com:BlakeSimpson/learning-react-and-redux-tutorial.git",
  "author": "Blake Simpson <blakersim@gmail.com>",
  "license": "MIT"
}

That is all we need to do for this step, in the next we will add Webpack and configure it to build a bundled JavaScript for us.