Note: NO need to install driver for CH341 (replaced by CP2102), and NO need to flash firmware when you get it and use on first time. This is different with version R1.To flash R2, please see the update on Nodemcu wiki page.
High quality USB cable is needed for this board to give high current supply, otherwise your board won’t be recognized.
The hardware documentation for the board can be found on nodemcu-devkit repo, including schematics and PCB layout designed with Altium Designer.
You can find the firmware source code and documentation on Github, as well as nodemcu-flasher, a Windows only tools to flash the firmware to a module. There’s also a separate tool called esptool that will let you flash nodemcu from Linux. In case you find the documentation is all over the place, you might want to checkout NodeMCU video tutorial below.Nodemcu.com is the official website for the project, but you’ll find more information on Github. You can also get answers to your questions on their BBS or ESP8622 community forums.