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Environment Setup

To get started with AKAI, the only requirement is a Node & npm environment.

Of course, a code editor is also required. Visual Studio Code is recommended. Visual Studio Code is a free, batteries-included text editor made by Microsoft.

Terminal

In general, we recommend using the built-in terminals. Many third-party terminals work well with AKAI, but may not be supported.

  • For Windows, Command Prompt and PowerShell are supported. WSL is known to work with Ionic, but may not be supported.
  • For macOS, the built-in Terminal app is supported.

Node & npm

Almost all tooling for modern JavaScript projects is based in Node.js. The download page has prebuilt installation packages for all platforms. We recommend selecting the LTS version to ensure best compatibility.

Node is bundled with npm, the package manager for JavaScript.

To verify the installation, open a new terminal window and run:

node --version
npm --version

Git

Git is often accompanied by a Git Host, such as GitHub, in which case additional setup is required. Follow the tutorial from the Git Host's documentation to set up Git:

Otherwise, follow the official installation instructions. The command-line utility can be downloaded from the download page.

To verify the installation, open a new terminal window and run:

git --version

Git GUI

Git is a command-line utility, but there are many GUI clients available. GitHub Desktop is recommended, and works well with GitHub.

Conclusion

With Node.js & npm, Visual Studio Code, a terminal, and Git installed on your machine, you have all the necessary tools to start working on AKAI!