oliverdavies.uk/content/node.ebcaf7c3-e103-448b-aa74-6bb469be0c2d.yml

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title:
  - value: 'Minimum viable development environment'
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      <p>What is the leanest and most minimal local environment for software development?</p>

      <p>I think if you use Linux, the most minimal approach is to install the packages you need, such as PHP and MySQL directly in your operating system.</p>

      <p>There's no overhead or complexity added by tools like containers so things will run as quick and efficiently as possible.</p>

      <p>This is great if you only work on one project and you can easily keep your installation in sync with production.</p>

      <p>But what if you work on multiple projects or with a team of Developers?</p>

      <p>You need a way for everyone to have the same software and package versions, and to be able to configure them for each project.</p>

      <p>These are the reasons why tools like Vagrant, Docker and Podman became popular, as they made it possible for environments to be easily repeatable and customisable.</p>

      <h2 id="what-about-nix%3F">What about Nix?</h2>

      <p>Another tool that can be used to install software is Nix - a package manager with over 100,000 software packages.</p>

      <p>I can use it to install the required software for each project and share the files with any team members so they have the same configuration.</p>

      <p>This is the <code>flake.nix</code> file that I've been testing with a Drupal codebase:</p>

      <pre><code class="nix">{
        inputs.nixpkgs.url = "github:nixos/nixpkgs/nixos-unstable";

        outputs =
          { nixpkgs, ... }:
          let
            system = "x86_64-linux";
            pkgs = nixpkgs.legacyPackages.${system};
          in
          {
            devShells.${system}.default = pkgs.mkShell {
              buildInputs = with pkgs; [
                mariadb
                php82
                php82Packages.composer
              ];
            };
          };
      }
      </code></pre>

      <p>This installs PHP 8.2, Composer and MariaDB, and nothing else.</p>

      <p>It also generates a <code>flake.lock</code> file so everyone gets exactly the same package versions.</p>

      <p>The downside is that, if everyone isn't using NixOS which handles services, I need to configure the database server for each project, running commands like <code>mysql_install_db</code> and <code>mysqld</code> before creating the database and user to put in the <code>settings.php</code> file.</p>

      <p>It's not complicated but <a href="/daily/2024/11/11/could-nix-and-devenv-replace-docker-compose">devenv is a great option</a> if you want something more fully featured and opinionated that does more out of the box.</p>

      <p>Once the database server is running and Drupal is installed, I can run <code>drush runserver</code> to run the website - no need for Apache, Caddy or Nginx.</p>

      <p>If you want to see another example, see the <a href="https://code.oliverdavies.uk/opdavies/oliverdavies.uk/src/commit/4350852406e9556b63a1df448f225abbd7883651/flake.nix">flake.nix file for this website</a>.</p>

              
    format: full_html
    processed: |
      <p>What is the leanest and most minimal local environment for software development?</p>

      <p>I think if you use Linux, the most minimal approach is to install the packages you need, such as PHP and MySQL directly in your operating system.</p>

      <p>There's no overhead or complexity added by tools like containers so things will run as quick and efficiently as possible.</p>

      <p>This is great if you only work on one project and you can easily keep your installation in sync with production.</p>

      <p>But what if you work on multiple projects or with a team of Developers?</p>

      <p>You need a way for everyone to have the same software and package versions, and to be able to configure them for each project.</p>

      <p>These are the reasons why tools like Vagrant, Docker and Podman became popular, as they made it possible for environments to be easily repeatable and customisable.</p>

      <h2 id="what-about-nix%3F">What about Nix?</h2>

      <p>Another tool that can be used to install software is Nix - a package manager with over 100,000 software packages.</p>

      <p>I can use it to install the required software for each project and share the files with any team members so they have the same configuration.</p>

      <p>This is the <code>flake.nix</code> file that I've been testing with a Drupal codebase:</p>

      <pre><code class="nix">{
        inputs.nixpkgs.url = "github:nixos/nixpkgs/nixos-unstable";

        outputs =
          { nixpkgs, ... }:
          let
            system = "x86_64-linux";
            pkgs = nixpkgs.legacyPackages.${system};
          in
          {
            devShells.${system}.default = pkgs.mkShell {
              buildInputs = with pkgs; [
                mariadb
                php82
                php82Packages.composer
              ];
            };
          };
      }
      </code></pre>

      <p>This installs PHP 8.2, Composer and MariaDB, and nothing else.</p>

      <p>It also generates a <code>flake.lock</code> file so everyone gets exactly the same package versions.</p>

      <p>The downside is that, if everyone isn't using NixOS which handles services, I need to configure the database server for each project, running commands like <code>mysql_install_db</code> and <code>mysqld</code> before creating the database and user to put in the <code>settings.php</code> file.</p>

      <p>It's not complicated but <a href="/daily/2024/11/11/could-nix-and-devenv-replace-docker-compose">devenv is a great option</a> if you want something more fully featured and opinionated that does more out of the box.</p>

      <p>Once the database server is running and Drupal is installed, I can run <code>drush runserver</code> to run the website - no need for Apache, Caddy or Nginx.</p>

      <p>If you want to see another example, see the <a href="https://code.oliverdavies.uk/opdavies/oliverdavies.uk/src/commit/4350852406e9556b63a1df448f225abbd7883651/flake.nix">flake.nix file for this website</a>.</p>

              
    summary: null
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