Running a local MongoDB with npm scripts for dev work

Below are two very simple npm scripts to run a local MongoDb instance for development work. There are two scripts that will work for Windows (x64) environments and mac OS X environments.

1) First install MongoDb

• For OS X I prefer brew install mongodb
• On Windows x64 install the official MSI
  • You may want to add to the path to your environment variable: set PATH=%PATH%;C:/Program Files/MongoDB/Server/3.2/bin/

2) Add the following to your packages.json file under scripts

"mongo-mac": "mkdir mongo-db; mongod --dbpath mongo-db",
"mongo-win": "md mongo-db & \"C:/Program Files/MongoDb/Server/3.2/bin/mongod.exe\" --dbpath mongo-db"

3) Now windows users can easily run with npm run mongo-win and OS X users can use npm run mongo-mac.

Gotchas

• Your mongod.exe path may be slightly different.
• The script assumes your database files will go in project folder mongo-db. I added it to .gitignore.
• You must keep your console open to run the db instance. I prefer this to always running the service so I can easily close everything when done.