Getting Started: Run Locally

This guide aims to provide the easiest and most reliable method for getting a copy of the application running locally.

If you're a developer looking to do heavier work on the application, check out the Contributing: Application Development for a more advanced guide covering practical developer workflows.

Quickstart with Docker

From the root directory of the repository, you should be able to get up and running with one command:

./script/server

This script will:

• Verify that docker and docker-compose are available on your system
• Initialize .env if needed from .env.example
• Use docker-compose up to build and start an instance of the application as a background daemon
• Print out the URL you can open the app at (usually http://localhost:8000)

Running on a Different Port

If you need to run the server on a different, edit the PORT option in your .env file. You might need to do this if you have something else already running on the default port (8000).

Updating After Changing Code

If you edit code, or checkout a new branch, the update script will handle all needed steps to refresh your running instance:

./script/update

Shutdown and Cleanup

From the same directory, run this command to shut down the Docker container and clean up any volumes:

docker-compose down -v