CLEAN is an opinionated MEAN fork which uses CoffeeScript and LESS while providing a simpler organization and less files. Furthermore, it prefers a model-based folder structure (instead of models/ and controllers/ folders).

We use Grunt for managing your server lifecycle, but not compiling. Instead, for this, we use the incredible Harp middleware. It automatically compiles Coffee, LESS and much more, upon browser request.

• Node.js - Download and Install Node.js. You can also follow this gist for a quick and easy way to install Node.js and npm
• MongoDB - Download and Install MongoDB - Make sure it's running on the default port (27017).

$ npm install
$ grunt

Then open a browser and go to:

http://localhost:3000

Take a quick look at server.coffee and hopefully you'll learn everything there is to know about what is where.

Q: Why is config/auth.coffee separated? Why are there routes there?!?!?! A: Because you'll probably not fiddle around it much, and it is a horrible, horrible boilerplate code which is, unfortunately, needed.