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Developer Setup Guide

This guide walks you through setting up a local development environment for building apps on the platform. By the end, you will have a working template running on your laptop.

When you are ready to deploy to a test environment, continue to Publish to Test.

Step by step​

1. Create a GitHub repository​

Create a new private repository in GitHub and clone it to your local machine. This is where your application code will live — just like any other GitHub project.

2. Set up the Developer Toolbox​

The Developer Toolbox (DCT) is a devcontainer that gives every developer the same tools and the same setup, regardless of whether they are on macOS, Windows, or Linux. Python, TypeScript, Go, Java, C#, PHP — all pre-installed.

Install it in your project folder.

Mac/Linux:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/helpers-no/devcontainer-toolbox/main/install.sh | bash

Windows PowerShell:

irm https://raw.githubusercontent.com/helpers-no/devcontainer-toolbox/main/install.ps1 | iex

This creates two files: .devcontainer/devcontainer.json and a .vscode/extensions.json These two files sets up devcontainer functionality on your machine.

Open the project in VS Code and click "Reopen in Container" when prompted.

See devcontainer-toolbox for more details.

3. Install a template​

The video below shows the full flow — opening VS Code in the devcontainer and selecting a template:

Inside the devcontainer, run:

dev-template python-basic-webserver-database

This copies in the template's application code, Kubernetes manifests, Dockerfile, and CI/CD pipeline. Pick whichever template matches your language — see the Templates page for the full list.

4. Configure and run​

dev-template configure

This provisions the services your template needs (for example, a PostgreSQL database in your local Kubernetes cluster) and writes a .env file with the connection details. Then run the app:

uv run python app/app.py

(Or the equivalent for your template's language — the template's README tells you the exact command.)

5. Develop​

You now have a working app on your laptop with all services running in your local cluster. Write code, test locally, iterate.

When you are ready to deploy your app to a test environment so it runs inside the Kubernetes cluster (just like it would in production), continue to Publish to Test.