Quick Start

This guide walks you from zero to a working project in a few commands.

1. Create a new project

If you already have a package.json, skip to step 2.

Create a minimal package.json by hand or with npm:

mkdir my-app && cd my-app
npm init -y

2. Install dependencies

rush install

Rush reads your package.json, resolves the full dependency tree, downloads and extracts every package into node_modules/, and writes a rush.lock file to pin exact versions.

3. Add a package

rush add express
rush add typescript --save-dev

This updates package.json, resolves the new graph, and re-installs.

4. Run a script

rush run build

Rush executes the build script from your package.json, automatically running prebuild and postbuild hooks if they exist.

5. Check for updates

rush outdated

Displays a colour-coded table of packages where newer versions are available.

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What just happened?

After rush install, your project directory looks like this:

my-app/
├── node_modules/
│   ├── .bin/          ← symlinked executables from direct deps
│   ├── .rush/         ← content-addressed package store
│   └── express/
├── package.json
└── rush.lock          ← exact pinned versions — commit this

Rush uses a content-addressed store inside node_modules/.rush/. Each package is extracted once and reused across installs via integrity sentinels, so subsequent rush install runs are nearly instant.

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Useful commands

Command	What it does
rush list	Show installed packages as a tree
rush why <pkg>	Explain why a package is in your tree
rush exec <bin>	Run a binary from node_modules/.bin
rush trust add <pkg>	Allow a package to run install scripts

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Next: rush install →