Quick Start

Create a Free Tier Cluster in Atlas

Create a free tier MongoDB cluster on MongoDB Atlas to store and manage your data. MongoDB Atlas hosts and manages your MongoDB database in the cloud. Complete the Get Started with Atlas guide to set up a new Atlas account, a free tier cluster (a shared MongoDB instance) and load sample data into your cluster.

Connect to your Cluster

You can connect to your MongoDB cluster by providing a connection string which instructs the driver on where and how to connect. The connection string includes information on the hostname or IP address and port of your cluster, the authentication mechanism, user credentials when applicable, and other connection options.

To connect to an instance or cluster not hosted on Atlas, see Other Ways to Connect to MongoDB.

To retrieve your connection string for the cluster you created in the previous step, log into your Atlas account and navigate to the Database section and click the Connect button for the cluster that you want to connect to as shown below.

Proceed to the Connect Your Application section and select the Node.js driver. Select the Connection String Only tab and click the Copy button to copy the connection string to your clipboard as shown below.

Save your connection string to a safe location.

Create your Node.js Application

Create a file to contain your application called index.js in your project directory. Add the following code, assigning the uri variable the value of your connection string.

const { MongoClient } = require("mongodb");
// Replace the uri string with your connection string.
const uri =
  "mongodb+srv://<user>:<password>@<cluster-url>?retryWrites=true&writeConcern=majority";
const client = new MongoClient(uri);
async function run() {
  try {
    await client.connect();
    const database = client.db('sample_mflix');
    const movies = database.collection('movies');
    // Query for a movie that has the title 'Back to the Future'
    const query = { title: 'Back to the Future' };
    const movie = await movies.findOne(query);
    console.log(movie);
  } finally {
    // Ensures that the client will close when you finish/error
    await client.close();
  }
}
run().catch(console.dir);

const MongoClient = require("mongodb").MongoClient;

Run your Node.js Application

Run the application you created from the previous step from the command line:

node index.js

You should see the details of the retrieved movie document in the output:

{
  _id: ...,
  plot: 'A young man is accidentally sent 30 years into the past...',
  genres: [ 'Adventure', 'Comedy', 'Sci-Fi' ],
  ...
  title: 'Back to the Future',
  ...
}

If you encounter an error or no output, check whether you specified the proper connection string in the application code, and loaded the sample data set in your Atlas cluster.

At this point, you should have a working application that uses the Node.js driver to connect to your MongoDB instance, runs a query on the sample data, and prints out the result.