diff --git a/docs/developer-setup.rst b/docs/developer-setup.rst
--- a/docs/developer-setup.rst
+++ b/docs/developer-setup.rst
@@ -51,6 +51,15 @@
   sudo systemctl stop cassandra
   sudo systemctl disable cassandra
 
+If you intend to hack on the frontend part of |swh| Web Applications, you will also
+need to have nodejs >= 12 in your development environment. If the version in your
+Debian-based distribution is lower, you can install node 12 using these commands::
+
+  sudo wget https://deb.nodesource.com/gpgkey/nodesource.gpg.key -O /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/nodesource.asc
+  echo "deb https://deb.nodesource.com/node_12.x $(lsb_release -cs) main" | sudo tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list.d/nodesource.list
+  sudo apt update
+  sudo apt install nodejs
+
 
 Checkout the source code
 ------------------------