Installation & Basic Setup in Jest
From the Jest cheat sheet · Setup & Configuration · verified Jul 2026
Installation & Basic Setup
Setting up Jest in your JavaScript/TypeScript project
javascript
# Install Jest
npm install --save-dev jest
# For TypeScript support
npm install --save-dev @types/jest ts-jest
# package.json scripts
{
"scripts": {
"test": "jest",
"test:watch": "jest --watch",
"test:coverage": "jest --coverage"
}
}💡 Use test:watch for TDD workflow with automatic re-runs
⚡ Add coverage thresholds to enforce code quality standards
📌 Configure testMatch to find your test files correctly
🟢 Start with node environment, switch to jsdom for DOM testing
setupconfiguration