---
title: Basic project setup using NPM and Browserify
layout: doc.hbs
---
# Introduction
When going beyond modifying existing examples you might be looking for a
way to setup your own code with dependency management together with external
dependencies like OpenLayers 3.
This tutorial serves as a suggested project setup using NPM and Browserify
for the most basic needs. There are several other options and in particular
you might be interested in
[compiling your own code together with OpenLayers 3](closure.html).
## Initial steps
Create a new empty directory for your project and navigate to it by running
`mkdir new-project && cd new-project`. Initialize your project using `npm init`
and answer the questions asked.
At this point you can ask NPM to add required dependencies by running
`npm install --save-dev openlayers browserify watchify uglify-js`. Watchify and
Uglify will be used to monitor for changes and to build into a minified
bundle.
## Application code and index.html
Place your application code in `index.js`. Here is a simple starting point:
```js
var ol = require('openlayers');
var map = new ol.Map({
target: 'map',
layers: [
new ol.layer.Tile({
source: new ol.source.OSM()
})
],
view: new ol.View({
center: [0, 0],
zoom: 0
})
});
```
You will also need an `ìndex.html` file that will use your bundle. Here is a simple
example:
```html
Using Browserify with OpenLayers
```
## Creating a bundle
With simple scripts you can introduce the commands `npm run build` and `npm start` to
manually build your bundle and watch for changes, respectively. Add the following
to the script section in `package.json`:
```json
"scripts": {
"start": "watchify index.js --outfile bundle.js",
"build": "browserify index.js | uglifyjs --compress --output bundle.js"
}
```
Note that `bundle.js` will contain your application code and all dependencies
used in your application, in this case the official full build of OpenLayers 3.
If you only need parts of OpenLayers 3 you can create
[custom builds](../../builder).