In just a few simple steps, you'll have a functional server running on your local machine, ready to handle requests and serve JSON data.

1. Install Node.js: Ensure Node.js is installed on your system. You can download it from the official website if you haven't already.

2. Initialize Your Project: Open your terminal and navigate to the directory where you want to create your project. Then run:

   npm init -y
   

   This initializes a new Node.js project with default settings.

3. Install Express: Next, install Express using npm:

   npm install express
   

4. Create Your Script: Use the touch command to create a new file named index.js:

   touch index.js
   

5. Edit index.js: Open index.js in a text editor and add the following code:

   const express = require("express");
   const app = express();
   
   app.get("/data", (req, res) => {
     res.json({
       name: "Billy Watson",
       age: "12",
       gender: "male",
     });
   });
   
   app.listen(3000, () => {
     console.log("Listening on port 3000");
   });
   

   This code sets up a basic Express server with a single route /data that returns a JSON response.

6. Run Your Server: To run your server and automatically restart it whenever you make changes, you can use nodemon. If you don't have nodemon installed globally, you can use npx to run it:

   npx nodemon index.js
   

   This command will start your Express server and you should see "Listening on port 3000" logged to the console.

That's it! You now have a basic Express server running on port 3000 with a /data route that returns JSON data.