Speed Up Drupal Development with This Simple Ddev Script

Goal

Prerequisites

Overview

1. Install DDev

   If you haven't already, download and install DDev on your local. This is almost always going to be super easy to do:

   // On MacOS
   brew install ddev/ddev/ddev
   
   // On Linux
   curl -fsSL https://pkg.ddev.com/apt/gpg.key | gpg --dearmor | sudo tee /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/ddev.gpg > /dev/null
   echo "deb [signed-by=/etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/ddev.gpg] https://pkg.ddev.com/apt/ * *" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ddev.list
   sudo apt update && sudo apt install -y ddev

   Note: ddev provides a wrapper around the containers and becomes the meta-command for much of what we do. 

2. Configure Environment Variables

   Depending on your hosting provider, you may need to set up specific environment variables for DDev. Refer to DDev's documentation and your hosting provider's documentation for detailed instructions. The most common managed hosting companies are:

   • Acquia
   • Lagoon
   • Pantheon
   • Platform.sh

3. Understanding the workflow

   Before we write the script, we need to understand the basic workflow and commands. This really is a super simple script - it's just running a series of commands. But, we need to know what commands we need and why to ensure we set it up properly.

   The script automates the process of setting up a local Drupal development environment. Here's what each part does:

   • ddev start: Starts the DDev containers.
   • ddev auth ssh: Adds your SSH key to the auth container.
   • ddev pull [PROVIDER] -y: Pulls the latest database and files from the production environment.
   • ddev drush cr: Clears the Drupal cache.
   • ddev drush uli: Generates a one-time login URL for the admin user.

   When you run these commands in this order, DDev will create the local environment, update it, and give you a link to login and get started.

4. Create the script

   In your codebase, create a file called startdev.sh (or whatever you like). Put in the commands you want to run along with any output text. Here is my example:

   #!/bin/bash
   
   # Start the containers and set them up
   echo '<----------- Starting containers ------------------------------->'
   ddev start
   
   # Add your SSH key to the auth container
   echo '<----------- Adding SSH key to auth container ------------------>'
   ddev auth ssh
   
   # Pull the latest DB and files from prod to local
   echo '<----------- Pulling latest DB and files from prod ------------->'
   ddev pull acquia -y
   
   # Clear the cache after the DB update
   echo '<----------- Clearing cache ------------------------------------>'
   ddev drush cr
   
   # Create a one-time login for the admin super user
   echo '<----------- Creating a one-time login for admin --------------->'
   ddev drush uli
   
   echo 'Done!'
   echo '<----------- Local dev set up - lets have some fun!  ----------->'

   The great thing about this is that my notes above make it clear where I am in the process. Meanwhile, the other outputs from DDev will display normally.

   Note: I'm using Acquia as the provider in this example, but you will need to change that to whatever provider you set up in step 2.

5. Run the script

   Honestly, that's about it. All we need to do is give the script execute permissions, add it to your repo, and then run it!

   // Give the script execute permissions. You only need to do this once.
   chmod +x startdev.sh
   
   // Add it to your repo
   git add startdev.sh
   git commit -m "Adding an awesome local dev script to my project."

   Now, any time you need to setup (or update) your local dev environment, just run this command:

   ./startdev.sh

   Note: The ./ prefix is used in Unix-like operating systems, including Linux and macOS, to run executable files or scripts that are located in the current directory. Unless your current directory is in your PATH environment variable, you need to tell the OS where the file is located.

6. Customize the script

   Why stop there? There are plenty of things you can do to customize your script. You can modify the messages, add a quote of the day, run other commands (like enabling dev modules), etc. For me, I decided to add some fun ASCII art to the script to display a custom message for the devs on the team:

   

Conclusion

Additional Resources