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Enabling the Projects feature

Node-RED comes with the Projects feature that allows you to version control your flows by creating a git repository around them. You can then commit changes from directly within the editor. You can also connect to a remote repository and push or pull changes to that remote.

This feature needs to be enabled before it can be used.

  1. Stop Node-RED by pressing Ctrl-C in the terminal window its running in.

  2. Find your Node-RED settings.js file in your User directory. By default this will be ~/.node-red/settings.js. Open it in a text editor.

  3. Find the editorTheme section at the bottom of the file. Set the enabled property to true:

    editorTheme: {
    projects: {
        // To enable the Projects feature, set this value to true
        enabled: true
    }
}

  4. Save the file and restart Node-RED

The log output should now include the line:

23 Oct 10:49:09 - [warn] No active project : using default flows file

Troubleshooting

If you see a line saying [warn] Projects disabled then you are missing a prerequisite. The line should tell you what is missing. For example, if it says git command not found then you need to install the git command-line tool and ensure its on your path before running Node-RED.

Creating a Node-RED Project

Once you have enabled the Projects feature, the next time you load the editor in your browser, you will be greeted with a dialog inviting you to create your first project.

Click the Create Project button and follow the steps it takes you through:

- Setup your username/email used to create commits
- Give your project a name and an optional description
- Set the flow file name to `flows.json`
- Configure the encryption of your credentials file.

The project will then be created under ~/.node-red/projects/<name-of-project>.

Next Steps

The next task is to install some extra nodes into the palette.