Local Development Setup

These instructions mostly repeat the process scripted in the Dockerfile, with some minor adjustments for the local development.

Instructions below assume that they are launched from the repository root

Building frontend code

These commands are expected to be run from the frontend directory.

In order to build the frontend, you need to

1. Install node 20.x. It can be done using nvm
2. Run npm install
3. Run npm run local:1 to build the frontend code.
4. Run npm run build:css to only build the CSS. local:1 task also runs this command.

It is expected that frontend/assets/v1/dist folder will contain the output artifacts.

Create Python environment

The LMS uses Python 3.10, and there are dependencies that won't work with the newer Python versions out of the box. If your local system Python version is different, you can install Python 3.10 using pyenv tool.

Having installed Python, you need to create a virtual environment with pipenv. Install pipenv using pip install pipenv and run pipenv install -d to install the dependencies, along with the dev packages (it installs django debug toolbar). Activate the virtual environment with pipenv shell.

Create and edit a local copy of the environment config

Copy the environment config: cp lms/settings/.env.example .env and fill AWS.* variables with some non-empty strings, e.g. AWS_S3_ACCESS_KEY_ID=asd

Append the localhost domain name at the end of the file, if you want to access the LMS in dev mode using "localhost:8001" URL:

LMS_DOMAIN=localhost
SITE_ID=1

Prepare static files for serving

ENV_FILE=.env python manage.py collectstatic --noinput --ignore "webpack-stats-v*.json"

Initialize the database

Start PostgreSQL in a docker container:

docker run -d -p 127.0.0.1:5432:5432 --name lms-postgres -e POSTGRES_USER=csc -e POSTGRES_DB=cscdb -e POSTGRES_PASSWORD=FooBar postgres

Start Redis in Docker container:

docker run -d -p 127.0.0.1:6379:6379 --name lms-redis redis:6-alpine redis-server --appendonly yes

and apply migrations, that essentially create and initialize the database: ENV_FILE=.env python ./manage.py migrate

Run the backend in development mode

ENV_FILE=.env python manage.py runserver localhost:8001

Run tests

Run tests using pytest. If you want to run tests from some specific folders, append the folder names to the command: pytest apps/core

Testing the JetBrains Academy integration locally

1. Run https://code.jetbrains.team/p/edu/repositories/educational-server locally
2. Set the SUBMISSION_SERVICE_URL and SUBMISSION_SERVICE_TOKEN variables to the values from the .env.example file
3. Enable internal mode in your IDE: https://plugins.jetbrains.com/docs/intellij/enabling-internal.html
4. Install the JetBrains Academy plugin
5. Open any JBA course
6. Use the "Change Submissions Service URL" action to set the URL to http://localhost:8080