Setting up a build for Angular 2.0 is a non-trivial task and can suck up a lot of your time. I found a few 'seed' projects, which provide a good starting point for Angular 2.0 development, however the ones I found were either too simple or far too complicated for my needs. That's why I decided to put together a simple, yet complete, seed project that was "just right", the Goldilocks of seed projects!

This project has TypeScript compilation, source maps, linting, live reload and also packages the built output into a distribution folder.

Clone or copy this project, then use npm to fetch the dependencies:

npm install

If you haven't used gulp before, install it as a global:

npm install -g gulp

Now build the project:

gulp

You should see something like the following:

$ gulp
[08:13:14] Using gulpfile ~/Projects/angular2-seed/gulpfile.js
[08:13:14] Starting 'tslint'...
[08:13:14] Starting 'clean'...
[08:13:15] Finished 'tslint' after 303 ms
[08:13:15] Finished 'clean' after 295 ms
[08:13:15] Starting 'compile'...
[08:13:15] Starting 'copy:libs'...
[08:13:15] Starting 'copy:assets'...
[08:13:18] Finished 'copy:libs' after 2.86 s
[08:13:18] Finished 'copy:assets' after 2.86 s
[08:13:18] Finished 'compile' after 2.88 s
[08:13:18] Starting 'build'...
[08:13:18] Finished 'build' after 43 μs
[08:13:18] Starting 'default'...
[08:13:18] Finished 'default' after 16 μs

The built output is now in the dist folder - you can now start up a local development server to see the results:

##Hello World

Your Angular 2 seed is fully functioning!

For faster development cycles you can run the following:

gulp serve

This command runs the build and starts up a development server pointing at the output. The src folder is watched for changes with the development server reloading automatically when the changes have been built.

The following is a brief overview of everything in this project:

• dist - this folder is constructed by the build and contains the compiled output ready to be served

• src - all of the project source lives in this folder

  • src/app/greeting/greeting.* - the one Angular 2 component that this project contains, containing the modules TypeScript, HTML and CSS.
  • src/app/bootstrap.ts - the entry point of the application
  • src/index.html - the HTML for page which bootstraps the app. This loads Angular, SystemJS then loads the bootstrap code.
  • src/main.css - CSS for index page

• gulpfile.js - the gulp build

• package.json - details the nature of this project and its dependencies (as used by npm install)

• tsconfig.json - the TypeScript compiler configuration

• tslint.json - the TypeScript linter configuration

For Angular 2 / TypeScript development I am using the Atom editor with the atom-typescript plugin, which together with linter-ts.