The purpose of this document is to provide a step-by-step guide to set up the main software and tools I use to set up a local web development environment on a brand new installation of macOS.

Homebrew is a package manager for macOS, we'll use this to install most of the software we'll need.

• Visit the Homebrew Website and follow the installation instruction, it usually means just running 1 command in the Terminal.

brew update

brew upgrade

iTerm2 is a replacement for Terminal on macOS.

• Download from the iTerm2 Website and install.

Oh My Zsh provides a framework for managing zsh configuration, improving the Terminal experience.

• Visit Oh My Zsh GitHub Repo and follow the installation instruction, it usually means just running 1 command in the Terminal.

Git is a version control system for tracking changes in any set of files.

• Run the following command in the Terminal:

brew install git

• You may want to set up some global configs for Git:

git config --global user.name "Your Name"
git config --global user.email "[email protected]"

• It is also very useful to exclude some OS and Editor specific files from Git by default. For this, you need to set up a global "gitignore" file:

touch ~/.gitignore_global
git config --global core.excludesfile ~/.gitignore_global

• Open the ~/.gitignore_global file in your favorite text editor and add the content from macOS.gitignore and from JetBrains.gitignore. You can find more gitignore examples in GitHub's Global gitignore Repo.

GitHub Desktop is an application that enables you to interact with GitHub using a GUI instead of the command line.

• Download from the GitHub Desktop Website and install.
• Authenticate the application with your account on GitHub to connect to your remote repositories.

NVM allows you to quickly install and use different versions of node.js (which includes the package manager npm) via the command line.

• Run the following commands in the Terminal:

brew install nvm

mkdir ~/.nvm

• Add the following lines to the ~/.zshrc file:

export NVM_DIR="$HOME/.nvm"
[ -s "/usr/local/opt/nvm/nvm.sh" ] && . "/usr/local/opt/nvm/nvm.sh"  # This loads nvm
[ -s "/usr/local/opt/nvm/etc/bash_completion.d/nvm" ] && . "/usr/local/opt/nvm/etc/bash_completion.d/nvm"  # This loads nvm bash_completion

• Test the installation (you may need to restart the Terminal):

nvm --version 

• Installing the newest version:

nvm install node

• Installing the latest LTS release:

nvm install --lts

• Checking installed versions

nvm ls

• Changing the node.js version

nvm use xx.xx.xx

• Uninstalling a node.js version

nvm uninstall xx.xx.xx

Yarn is a package manager for your code.

• Run the following commands in the Terminal:

brew install yarn

MySQL, PostgreSQL are relational database management systems. A relational database organizes data into one or more data tables in which data types may be related to each other to help structure the data.

Redis is an open source, in-memory data structure store, used as a database, cache, and message broker.

DBngin provides a free, all-in-one database management tool that includes MySQL, PostgreSQL, and Redis. After DBngin has been installed, you can connect to your database at 127.0.0.1 using the root username and an empty string for the password.

• Download from the DBngin Website and install.

TablePlus is a modern, native, and friendly GUI tool for relational databases. It allows you to easily query, edit and manage your databases.

• Download from the TablePlus Website and install.
• Add your license key.

PHP is a general-purpose scripting language geared towards web development.

• Run the following commands in the Terminal:

brew install php

• Test the installation (you may need to restart the Terminal):

php -v 

Composer is a dependency and package manager for PHP.

• Visit the Composer Website and follow the instructions (make sure to do a "global install" so you can run composer from any directory).
• Place Composer's system-wide vendor bin directory in your $PATH by adding the following line in the ~/.zshrc file:

export PATH="$HOME/.composer/vendor/bin:$PATH"

• Test the installation by running the following commands in the Terminal:

composer

Laravel Valet configures your Mac to always run Nginx in the background when your machine starts. It uses DnsMasq to proxy all requests on the *.test domain to point to sites installed on your local machine.

• Follow the instruction in the Laravel Documentation (requires Composer).
• Register a directory in your machine, for example:

cd ~/Sites
valet park

• Now all directories within ~/Sites will be accessible in your web browser at http://<directory-name>.test

Laravel is a web application framework that provides a structure and starting point for creating your applications.

• Install the Laravel Installer by following the instruction in the Laravel Documentation (requires Composer).
• You can now create a Laravel app by using the following command:

laravel new example-app

rbenv is a simple Ruby version management tool which allows you to install and switch Ruby versions in your development environment.

• Run the following commands in the Terminal:

brew install rbenv

• Add the following lines to the ~/.zshrc file:

export PATH="$HOME/.rbenv/bin:$PATH"
eval "$(rbenv init -)"

• Close and reopen the Terminal and test the installation:

rbenv install --list

• Install your desired Ruby version, for example:

rbenv install 3.1.0
rbenv rehash

• Test the installation (you may need to restart the Terminal):

ruby --version 

• List installed Ruby versions:

rbenv versions

• Set or show the global Ruby version:

rbenv global 3.1.0

Rails is a full-stack framework which ships with all the tools needed to build your web apps on both the front and back end.

• Run the following commands in the Terminal:

gem install rails
rbenv rehash

• Test the installation (you may need to restart the Terminal):

rails --version 

• You can now create a Rails app by using the following command:

rails new example-app

• In case of getting an error while installing the RubyGems for MySQL, try installing it separately with the following command:

gem install mysql2 -- --with-opt-dir="$(brew --prefix openssl)"