Prerequisites¶

macOS (Option B — local setup)¶

Tool	Minimum	Check	Auto-installed by setup script?
macOS	12+ Monterey	`sw_vers`	—
Homebrew	any	`brew --version`	No — install from brew.sh
Python 3	3.9+	`python3 --version`	No — `brew install python3`
.NET SDK 6.0	6.0.x	`~/.dotnet/dotnet --version`	Yes
PostgreSQL 16	16.x	`psql --version`	Yes (if missing)
Docker Desktop	4.x	`docker --version`	No — only needed for Docker/DevContainer options

Minimum manual installs

You only need Homebrew and Python 3 before running the setup script. Everything else is handled automatically.

Docker (Option A)¶

Tool	Check	Install
Docker Desktop 4.x+	`docker --version`	docker.com
Docker Compose v2	`docker compose version`	Bundled with Docker Desktop

No .NET SDK, PostgreSQL, or Python needed locally.

VS Code DevContainer (Option C)¶

Tool	Check	Install
Docker Desktop 4.x+	`docker --version`	docker.com
VS Code	`code --version`	code.visualstudio.com
Dev Containers extension	VS Code Extensions panel	`ms-vscode-remote.remote-containers`

Windows¶

Native local setup is not scripted. Use Option A (Docker) or Option C (DevContainer) on Windows. Both work identically on Windows with Docker Desktop installed.

For native Windows + IIS production deployment, see the Windows / IIS Deployment Checklist section.

Verify your environment¶

Run this before starting any setup:

# macOS version
sw_vers -productVersion

# Homebrew
brew --version

# Python
python3 --version

# .NET (may not exist yet — that's fine)
~/.dotnet/dotnet --version 2>/dev/null || echo "not installed yet"

# Docker
docker --version 2>/dev/null || echo "not installed"

# PostgreSQL
psql --version 2>/dev/null || echo "not installed yet"