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Install Medusa Backend

This document will guide you through setting up your Medusa backend in a three steps.

Prerequisites​

Node.js​

Medusa supports Node v16 or greater. You can check which version of Node you have by running the following command:

node -v

You can install Node from the official website.

Git​

Git is required for this setup. You can find instructions on how to install it from the Set up your dev environment documentation.

Create a Medusa Backend​

It is recommended to use Yarn for the installation process as it's much faster than using NPM.

1. Install Medusa CLI​

npm install @medusajs/medusa-cli -g

If you run into any errors while installing the CLI tool, check out the troubleshooting guide.

2. Create a new Medusa project​

medusa new my-medusa-store --seed

3. Start your Medusa backend​

cd my-medusa-store
medusa develop

Test the Backend​

After these three steps and in only a couple of minutes, you now have a complete commerce engine running locally. You can test it out by sending a request using a tool like Postman or through the command line:

curl localhost:9000/store/products

Health Route​

You can access /health to get health status of your backend.

Next Steps​

Learn about the Architecture​

Medusa backend is made up of different resources that make it a powerful server. Get an overview of them in the Medusa Architecture Overview documentation.

Set Up Development Environment​

For an optimal experience developing with Medusa and to make sure you can use its advanced functionalities, you'll need to install more tools such as PostgreSQL.

Follow this documentation to learn how to set up your development environment.

Backend Configurations​

It's important to configure your Medusa backend properly and learn how environment variables are loaded.

You can learn more about configuring your backend and loading environment variables in the Configure your Backend documentation.

File Service Plugin​

To upload product images to your Medusa backend, you must install and configure one of the following file service plugins: