Prepare Development Environment
This document will guide you to prepare your development environment to efficiently and properly use Medusa.
Required Tools
To get your development environment ready you need to install the following tools:
Node.js
Node.js is the environment that makes it possible for Medusa to run, so you must install Node.js on your computer to start Medusa development.
Medusa supports v16 or greater of Node.js. You can check your Node.js version using the following command:
node -v
- Windows
- Linux
- macOS
You can install the executable directly from the Node.js website.
For other approaches, you can check out Node.js’s guide.
You can use the following commands to install Node.js on Ubuntu:
#Ubuntu
sudo apt update
sudo apt install nodejs
For other Linux distributions, you can check out Node.js’s guide.
You can use the following commands to install Node.js on macOS:
- Homebrew
- Without Homebrew
brew install node
curl \
"https://nodejs.org/dist/latest/node-${VERSION:-$(wget -qO- \
https://nodejs.org/dist/latest/ | sed -nE \
's|.*>node-(.*)\.pkg</a>.*|\1|p')}.pkg" \
> "$HOME/Downloads/node-latest.pkg" &&
sudo installer -store -pkg "$HOME/Downloads/node-latest.pkg" -target "/"
For other approaches, you can check out Node.js’s guide.
Make sure that you have Xcode command line tools installed; if not, run the following command to install it: xcode-select --install
Git
Medusa uses Git behind the scenes when you create a new project so you'll have to install it on your computer to get started.
- Windows
- Linux
- macOS
To install Git on Windows, you need to download the installable package.
For Debian/Ubuntu, you can use the following command:
apt-get install git
As for other Linux distributions, please check git’s guide.
You should already have Git installed as part of the Xcode command-line tools.
However, if for any reason you need to install it manually, you can install it with Homebrew:
brew install git
You can also check out git’s guide for more installation options.
Medusa CLI
The final installation required to get started with Medusa is the Medusa CLI. It is an NPM package you can install globally on your machine to get instant access to commands that help you manage and run your Medusa project.
You can install Medusa’s CLI with the following command:
- npm
- Yarn
npm install @medusajs/medusa-cli -g
yarn global add @medusajs/medusa-cli
You can check that Medusa was installed by running the following command:
medusa -v
If you run into any errors while installing the CLI tool, check out the troubleshooting guide.
Install Medusa Backend
If you're not interested in installing the optional tools and want to get started with Medusa quickly, check out the Medusa Backend Quickstart.
Optional Tools
These tools are not required to have to run a Medusa backend, but it's highly recommended that you have them installed.
PostgreSQL
Although you can use an SQLite database with Medusa which would require no necessary database installations, it is recommended to use a PostgreSQL database for your backend.
After installing PostgreSQL, check out the Configure your Backend documentation to learn how to configure PostgreSQL to work with Medusa.
- Windows
- Linux
- macOS
You can download the PostgreSQL Windows installer from their website.
If you’re using Ubuntu, you can use the following commands to download and install PostgreSQL:
sudo sh -c \
'echo "deb http://apt.postgresql.org/pub/repos/apt $(lsb_release -cs)-pgdg main" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/pgdg.list'
wget --quiet -O - \
https://www.postgresql.org/media/keys/ACCC4CF8.asc | sudo apt-key add -
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get -y install postgresql
For other distributions, you can check out PostgreSQL’s website for more guides.
You can download PostgreSQL on your macOS using the installer on their website.