# Exercise: Game Night Project Setup

Take a working but messy Game Night scoreboard and set it up like a professional project, with npm scripts, ESLint, Prettier and a .gitignore, until npm run lint, npm run format:check and the tests all pass.

Journeyman · JavaScript · Node.js · Software Development · Updated October 30, 2026

Every Saturday, four friends play game night, and one of them wrote a small program to keep score. It works: it adds up every round and names a winner. But it's messy. The quotes don't match, the indents wander, and a reviewer would flag a few lines right away. In this exercise you set the project up the way a professional team would, with npm scripts, ESLint, Prettier and a `.gitignore`, and clean the code up without changing what it does. Tests check every step.

## Get the exercise code

In the **Exercise** box beside the lesson, choose **Get the starter on GitHub** to open its GitHub repository, `exercise-javascript-game-night-project-setup`. Click **Code**, then **Download ZIP**, and unzip it. Or clone it with Git. Then open the folder in VS Code.

The folder holds:

- `scores.js`: the scoreboard's functions (`totalFor`, `standings`, `roundWinner` and `winner`) and the night's four rounds. It works, but ESLint will find problems in it. You fix them.
- `main.js`: prints the scoreboard. It works, but it needs formatting.
- `package.json` and `.gitignore`: you finish both.
- `scores.test.js`: checks that the scoreboard still works. It passes now, and it must still pass at the end.
- `setup.test.js`: checks your setup, one step at a time. You don't need to change either test file.

## What to do

Here's `package.json` as it comes. It names the project and makes its files modules, and that's all:

```json
{
  "name": "game-night-scoreboard",
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "description": "A scoreboard for game night: the players, the rounds and the winner.",
  "private": true,
  "type": "module"
}
```

The README in the folder has every step in detail. In short:

1. **Tell Git to ignore `node_modules`**, in `.gitignore`.
2. **Install ESLint, `@eslint/js`, `globals` and Prettier** as devDependencies, at the exact versions the README gives, with one `npm install` command.
3. **Add four npm scripts:** `test` (`node --test`), `lint` (`eslint .`), `format` (`prettier --write .`) and `format:check` (`prettier --check .`).
4. **Make `eslint.config.js`**, with ESLint's recommended rules, the globals for Node, and the rules `eqeqeq` and `prefer-const` set to `"error"`.
5. **Fix every problem ESLint reports**, in the code itself.
6. **Format every file** with Prettier.

## Check your work

In VS Code's terminal, in the project folder:

```bash
node --test
```

At first the 5 scoreboard tests pass and the 6 setup tests fail. That's expected: each step you finish turns a setup test green. A failing test's message says what's missing, for example *Add the script "lint": "eslint ."*, or *Run npm install first*.

Once your scripts are in, `npm test` runs the same tests, and `npm run lint` and `npm run format:check` show you exactly what ESLint and Prettier still want.

## Hints

- **Start with the README's install command.** Copy it whole: it installs all four tools at once, with `--save-dev` and `--save-exact`.
- **Your config is close to the lesson's.** *Clean Code with ESLint and Prettier* shows a complete `eslint.config.js` for a web page. This project runs in Node, and it has no `dist` folder to skip.
- **Read each ESLint line from right to left.** The rule's name at the end says what kind of fix it wants. *Clean Code with ESLint and Prettier* has a table of the three you'll meet.
- **Fix, don't silence.** A rule switched off or an `eslint-disable` comment makes the warning go away, but the mistake stays, and the tests check for both.
- **JSON is strict.** If a script won't run, look in `package.json` for a missing comma between scripts, or a comma after the last one.

## When you're done

Every test is green:

```text
ℹ tests 11
ℹ suites 0
ℹ pass 11
ℹ fail 0
```

`npm run format:check` ends with `All matched files use Prettier code style!`, `npm run lint` prints no problems, and `node main.js` prints the same scoreboard it printed before you started:

```text
Game Night Scoreboard

Trivia: won by Maya
Charades: won by Jordan
Word Scramble: won by Priya
Card Race: won by Jordan

1. Jordan: 27 points
2. Maya: 26 points
3. Leo: 26 points
4. Priya: 25 points

Winner: Jordan
```

Look back at the three kinds of problem ESLint found. Which of them could have caused a real bug one day, and which only made the code harder to read?

## So what

This is the setup a team expects before it reads a line of your code. Every project you start from here on can begin the same way: package.json, a .gitignore, ESLint, Prettier and a test script.

## Key terms

- npm scripts
- [Development Dependency](https://www.ask-codey.com/glossary/development-dependency)
- node_modules
- [Linter](https://www.ask-codey.com/glossary/linter)
- [ESLint](https://www.ask-codey.com/glossary/eslint)
- Prettier

## Related

- [npm and Packages](https://www.ask-codey.com/lessons/javascript-tooling-npm-and-packages)
- [Clean Code with ESLint and Prettier](https://www.ask-codey.com/lessons/javascript-tooling-eslint-and-prettier)

Source: https://www.ask-codey.com/lessons/exercise-javascript-game-night-project-setup