twenty_crm/docs/docs/developer/local-setup.mdx

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# Local Setup

This section will guide you through the Twenty installation on your local environment. 
Twenty is designed to be developer-friendly, and your local installation should be up and running in a few minutes.

In a nutshell:
- We recommend using `yarn` installation but we also provide an easy way to run the project with Docker.
- Twenty uses PostgreSQL as a database. If you don't a PostgreSQL instance available, we also provide a one-line command to provision one through Docker.

The repository is structured as follows:
```
twenty
└───docs // contains this documentation
└───front // contains the frontend code for the application
└───server // contains the backend code for the application
└───infra // contains docker configurations for development and production deployments
```

## Yarn install (recommended)

**Note:** `npm` currently does not support local packages satisfactorily. We strongly recommend using `yarn` instead.

### 1. Pre-requisites

You need to have [git](https://git-scm.com/book/en/v2/Getting-Started-Installing-Git), [node](https://nodejs.org/en/download) and [yarn](https://classic.yarnpkg.com/lang/en/docs/install/) installed on your computer.

### 2. Git clone
```
git clone git@github.com:twentyhq/twenty.git
```


### 3. PostgreSQL database
You also need to have a PosgresSQL database available. If you already have one available, you can skip this step.

If you don't, you can provision one through `docker` using the following command:

```bash
cd twenty
make provision-postgres
```

This will create a Docker container, exposing a PostgresSQL instance at [http://localhost:5432](http://localhost:5432).

### 4. Setup env variables

Twenty requires a few environment variables to be set. Locally, we recommend setting them through a `.env` file.

To do so, make copies of the `.env.example` files in `/front` and `/server`:
```bash
cp ./front/.env.example ./front/.env
cp ./server/.env.example ./server/.env
```

The default values should work out of the box. Don't forget to update the database connection string if you are using your own database instance.

### 5. Server setup

**Note:** we recommend that you use `nvm` to install the correct `node` version. We have added a `server/.nvmrc` to ensure all contributors are using the same version.

To build Twenty server and seed some data into your database:
```bash
cd server
nvm install #recommended
nvm use #recommended 
yarn
yarn prisma:reset
yarn start:dev
```

Twenty server will be running at [http://localhost:3000](http://localhost:3000).

### 6. Frontend setup

**Note:** similarly, we recommend that you use `nvm` to install the right node version.

```bash
cd ../front
nvm install #recommended
nvm use #recommended 
yarn
yarn start
```

Twenty front will be running at [http://localhost:3001](http://localhost:3001).

### 7. Sign in to your local Twenty installation

Open [http://localhost:3001](http://localhost:3001) in your web browser. You can login using our seeded demo account: `tim@apple.dev`.

## Docker install

You can also provision the project with Docker. This comes with a few advantages:
- It provides the exact same environment as our core developer team.
- It includes some additional dependencies (such as `playwright`) that you might need if you wish to contribute to some advanced areas of the project.
- It provisions a PostgreSQL database.

### 1. Pre-requisites

Make sure you have the latest `Docker` and [git](https://git-scm.com/book/en/v2/Getting-Started-Installing-Git) versions installed on your computer.

You can run `docker --version` to verify the installation.

### 2. Git clone
```bash
git clone git@github.com:twentyhq/twenty.git
```

### 3. Setup env variables

Twenty requires a few environment variables to be set. Locally, we recommend setting them through `.env` files.

```bash
cp ./front/.env.example ./front/.env
cp ./server/.env.example ./server/.env 
```

The default values should work out of the box, except for the postgres URL, which requires a small modification.

Open `./server/.env` and change to the following:

```bash
PG_DATABASE_URL=postgres://postgres:postgrespassword@postgres:5432/default?connection_limit=1
```


### 4. Build

We provide an environment containerized with Docker and orchestrated with `docker-compose`.
This installation method will also provision a PostgreSQL container.

**Note:** the configuration for the build is stored in the `infra/dev` folder, but you can run `make` commands directly from the root folder.

```bash
make build
```

### 5. Migrate & seed

Before running the project, you need to initialize the database by running the migrations and seed.

Start the containers:
```bash
make up
```

Run database migrations, generate prisma client, and seed:
```bash
make server-prisma-reset
```

### 6. Start Twenty

Run the project with the following commands from `root folder`:

```bash
make server-start
```

```bash
make front-start
```

You should now have:
- **front** available on: [http://localhost:3001](http://localhost:3001)
- **server** available on: [http://localhost:3000/graphql](http://localhost:3000/graphql)
- **postgres** available on [http://localhost:5432](http://localhost:5432) and containing database named `default`

### 7. Sign in to your local Twenty installation

Open [http://localhost:3001](http://localhost:3001) and sign in using our seeded demo account `tim@apple.dev`.

### 8. (Optional)

If you don't want to use the `make` command and work directly from the container, you can also ssh directly into the container:

```bash
make sh
```
Then run commands through yarn:
```bash
cd server
yarn prisma:reset
```