Normally, probably, we generate dynamic sites. This is what most web development is about. Doing that we must reference a templating engine that is capable of interpolating variable dynamic data into an HTML5 template. Because there is a choice of templating engines we denominate one, pug. The default is, strangely, an ancestor of pug, jade that nobody uses any more.

$ npx express-generator -v pug --git firstlocal

   create : nodeOne/
   create : nodeOne/public/
   create : nodeOne/public/javascripts/
   create : nodeOne/public/images/
   create : nodeOne/public/stylesheets/
   create : nodeOne/public/stylesheets/style.css
   create : nodeOne/routes/
   create : nodeOne/routes/index.js
   create : nodeOne/routes/users.js
   create : nodeOne/views/
   create : nodeOne/views/error.pug
   create : nodeOne/views/index.pug
   create : nodeOne/views/layout.pug
   create : nodeOne/.gitignore
   create : nodeOne/app.js
   create : nodeOne/package.json
   create : nodeOne/bin/
   create : nodeOne/bin/www

   change directory:
     $ cd nodeOne

   install dependencies:
     $ npm install

   run the app:
     $ DEBUG=nodeone:* npm start

Giving us the skeleton infrastructure

$ tree firstlocal
firstlocal
├── app.js
├── bin
│   └── www
├── package.json
├── public
│   ├── images
│   ├── javascripts
│   └── stylesheets
│   └── style.css
├── routes
│   ├── index.js
│   └── users.js
└── views
    ├── error.pug
    ├── index.pug
    └── layout.pug

7 directories, 9 files

It is recommended to adapt the package file:

...
  "scripts": {
    "start": "node ./bin/www",
    "pretest": "npm install",
    "test": "DEBUG=firstlocal:* node ./bin/www"
  },
...

upon which the server may be started for test with npm test

Having done that we will set it up to use git as a matter of good habit (abbreviated)

$ git init --initial-branch=main
$ mkdir controllers
$ mkdir models
$ git add .
$ git commit -m 'initial'

The package.json

{
  "name": "nodeone",
  "version": "0.0.0",
  "private": true,
  "scripts": {
    "start": "node ./bin/www"
  },
  "dependencies": {
    "cookie-parser": "~1.4.4",
    "debug": "~2.6.9",
    "express": "~4.16.1",
    "http-errors": "~1.6.3",
    "morgan": "~1.9.1",
    "pug": "2.0.0-beta11"
  }
}

To test, we do

$ cd nodeOne
$ npm install
npm WARN deprecated core-js@2.6.12: core-js@<3.4 is no longer maintained and not recommended for usage due to the number of issues. Because of the V8 engine whims, feature detection in old core-js versions could cause a slowdown up to 100x even if nothing is polyfilled. Please, upgrade your dependencies to the actual version of core-js.

added 124 packages, and audited 125 packages in 6s

8 packages are looking for funding
  run `npm fund` for details

4 vulnerabilities (2 low, 2 high)

To address issues that do not require attention, run:
  npm audit fix

To address all issues, run:
  npm audit fix --force

Run `npm audit` for details.

$ npm start

The browser is then pointed at the designated port, and we see welcome screen.

Figure 20.3. The resulting Express Site as Expected

Notice the given URL