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Setting up your computer for development

If you're planning to use Windows make sure to read the Windows section before you continue.

Dependencies​

There's a few things you'll need installed on your OS before you start working on anything.

  • git
  • node & yarn
  • docker & docker-compose
  • cypress dependencies

If you're on a linux distribution and you want to run the apps locally (ie. without docker), you might also need to install build-essentials or an equivalent package, in order to be able to compile some of the dependencies. Some distributions come with these packages pre-installed, but others don't.

git​

Refer to the docs to see how to install git on your specific OS.

node & yarn​

It's probably best to avoid installing node through your distribution's package manager, as they tend to deliver versions that are outdated.

nvm​

It is recommended that you use nvm (node version manager) to be able to easily switch between node versions.
Installation instructions can be found here.

After you've installed nvm:

Install node 12 (the version our apps currently run on)

nvm install 12

Switch to node 12 right now

nvm use 12

Set node 12 to be the default

nvm alias default 12

yarn​

Now that you have node installed, you can simply install yarn through npm.

npm install --global yarn

Make sure you have version 1 installed. Version 2 is incompatible with version 1 and our apps.

yarn --version

If you used nvm to install node, keep in mind that this will install yarn for that specific version of node. If you switch node versions you'll have to install yarn for those versions as well (with the same command as above).

docker​

As with node, avoid using the linux distribution provided packages for docker and docker-compose.
You can find the correct installation instructions for docker here and for docker-compose here.

If you're on Windows, make sure you install docker inside WSL (following the linux instructions from the link above), and not the Windows desktop app.

Check that docker is working as expected​

Make sure the docker daemon is running. On macOS this would simply mean that the app is running in the background.

On linux:

sudo service docker start

If you're running on a native linux distribution you can also enable the service to make sure it starts automatically on every boot.

sudo service docker enable

If you're on Windows/WSL, read the docker section in the Windows part of the docs.

Running the info command, you should now be able to see a long output of stats.

docker info

To check that docker-compose works as expected, the following command should return the current version:

docker-compose --version

Troubleshooting​

If you find that the info command only works with sudo, make sure your user is in the docker group.

You can check if your username is included in the output of the following command.

cat /etc/group | grep docker

If not, add yourself to the group.

sudo usermod -aG docker $USER

It is possible that a reboot or a logout is needed for this change to take effect.

cypress​

cypress is the end-to-end testing library we're currently using.

If you're on Linux, you might need to install some additional dependencies in order for it to run correctly.
See the relevant part of the documentation for details.

If you're on WSL, you'll need an X Server installation so that cypress running inside the Linux VM can open a GUI on Windows.
Follow this guide for further details.

ssh​

This is a good opportunity to set up an ssh key, if you haven't set one up already.