Installation

Two ways, and the second is the one to pick for a team.

Globally

npm i -g laqi

One binary on your PATH, usable in any project. No account, nothing added to the project you are working on.

As a dev dependency

Better when more than one person runs it, because the version is then part of the repo rather than part of each machine:

npm i -D laqi

Add a script so nobody has to remember the command:

{
  "scripts": {
    "mock": "laqi"
  }
}

Then npm run mock serves ./laqi/ and opens the panel, using the version the lockfile pins. A teammate who clones the repo and runs npm install gets the same laqi you have, which a global install cannot promise.

npx laqi runs it without installing anything, which is fine for a look but downloads on every cold run.

This is what examples/todo-app does — its mock script runs laqi from the project, beside the frontend’s own dev script, so the two processes start the same way.

Requirements

• Node.js 20 or newer.

Verify

laqi --help

That prints the command list. laqi has no --version flag — the version is in the startup banner every time you run it, on the first line beside the name:

⚡ laqi 2.1.3
serving   127.0.0.1:8000

(An illustrative number. Yours is whatever you installed.)

Next step

Installation is not the goal — a response flipping in the panel is. Head to the Quick start: scaffold a mock API with laqi init and watch your frontend meet its empty state a minute from now.