Do not pick an editor on looks alone. Pick one where saving, searching, and seeing type errors are all immediate.

I have no basis for choosing yet.

Then use VS Code. TypeScript support is built in and there is plenty of material when you get stuck. If something starts to annoy you later, that is the moment to try another editor.

Are more extensions better?

Go light at first. A formatter and visible lint results are enough. Add an extension once you can say what problem it solves.

The other tool is Git. It keeps a history of your changes so you can always get back to an earlier state. Before your first commit, register your name and email once.

git config --global user.name "Your Name"
git config --global user.email "you@example.com"

What are those used for?

They are recorded as the author of each change. Skip them and your very first commit will stop and ask.

With that done, start from the habit of looking at status and diff.

git status
git diff

So you check what changed before recording anything.

Yes. git status tells you which files you touched, git diff shows what changed inside them. When you are satisfied with what you read, pick the files you want to keep and commit them.

git add index.ts
git commit -m "Add first message"

I have also seen git add . used to stage everything at once.

You will use it eventually. Early on it is an easy way to sweep up stray config or secrets by accident. For anything that should never be recorded at all, write it in .gitignore.

node_modules
.env

node_modules can be rebuilt by pnpm at any time, so it does not belong in the history. Secrets like .env should never be shared in the first place.

Can I look back at what I recorded?

git log --oneline lists it. That is why a commit message should be a short line that says what you did — your future self is the one reading it.

Write, read the diff, record only what belongs. That loop sounds like the core of the work.

It is. Treat editor settings the same way: add the ones whose purpose you can explain. Next we use all of these tools together on a small project.