Setting Up Your Development Environment

In this lesson, we’ll walk through the process of setting up your local development environment for creating courses on git.nrw. Having a proper setup will make the course creation process smoother and more efficient.

Prerequisites

Before you begin, make sure you have the following installed on your system:

• Git

You will also need either:

• Option 1:
  • Node.js
  • npm
  • Hugo

or

• Option 2:
  • Docker

Step 1: Clone the Repository

First, let’s clone the git.nrw repository:

git clone git@gitlab.com:<project-name>/<repository-name>.git
cd <repository-name>

Step 2: Install Dependencies

Install the required npm packages:

npm install

Step 3: Choose Your Development Method

You have two options for running the development server:

Option 1: Using npm (with Hugo and Node.js)

Start the development server using npm:

npm run dev

Option 2: Using Docker

If you prefer using Docker, build and start the container:

npm run docker:build
npm run docker:up

Step 4: Verify Your Setup

Once the development server is running, open your browser and navigate to:

http://localhost:1313

You should see the git.nrw homepage. If everything loads correctly, your development environment is set up and ready to go!

Next Steps

Now that your development environment is set up, we’re ready to start planning and creating your course. In the next lesson, we’ll dive into the structure of a git.nrw course and how to plan your content effectively.