# Local Environment Setup

To get started building on Seam, the only requirement is a Node JS environment. Seam miniapps are written in [Typescript](https://www.typescriptlang.org/) and are [React](https://react.dev/) components. Read on to get setup with the programming tools on your own computer.

### Node, NPM & Yarn

Node.js is the runtime environment that most modern JavaScript applications use to run their code.

Like all JavaScript projects, Seam has dependencies on 3rd party packages which provide additional functionality for the miniapps and also getting the web app to work as intended. To install and manage these dependencies, a package manager is required.

At Seam, we prefer [Yarn](https://yarnpkg.com/getting-started) over [NPM](https://www.npmjs.com/). In our documentation, you'll often see `yarn install` or `yarn start`. This is because Yarn is faster and more secure than the Node Package Manager (NPM).

Of course, a code editor is also necessary. We recommend [Visual Studio Code](https://code.visualstudio.com/) which is a free, open source text editor made by Microsoft.