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Set Up Environment

This guide explains how to set up a local development environment for PLANKA using either a traditional Node.js setup or Docker-based approach.

Cloning the Repository​

Start by cloning the PLANKA repository:

git clone https://github.com/plankanban/planka.git

Traditional Development Setup​

Install dependencies​

First, install the required dependencies:

cd planka
npm install

Configuring Environment Variables​

Create a .env file in the server/ directory based on the sample:

cp server/.env.sample server/.env

Edit server/.env:

  • Set DATABASE_URL to your local database instance.
  • Сonfigure DEFAULT_ADMIN_* variables to define an initial admin user.

Initializing the Database​

Run the following command to initialize the database:

npm run server:db:init

Starting the Development Server​

To launch both the frontend and backend in development mode:

npm start

Docker-Based Development Setup​

This setup uses Docker Compose to run all services (client, server, database) and auto-reloads on file changes.

Clean Workspace Requirement​

Make sure there are no already installed dependencies (node_modules or .venv directories), since they should be installed via Docker. Otherwise, this can lead to Segmentation fault errors due to Node.js/Python version mismatches.

If you already have them, remove them first:

rm -rf node_modules client/node_modules server/node_modules server/.venv

Configuring Environment Variables​

Create a .env file in the server/ directory based on the sample:

cp server/.env.sample server/.env

Edit server/.env:

  • Сonfigure DEFAULT_ADMIN_* variables to define an initial admin user.

Start the Full Stack Dev Environment​

docker-compose -f docker-compose-dev.yml up

This will build and start all required services in development mode.

Access PLANKA​

Once started, access PLANKA in your browser at http://localhost:3000.