setup

All roles will likely require setting up an environment that lets you run Wordplay locally, on your device. That requires installing a bunch of stuff, including a code editor, the Wordplay repository, and the many dependencies that Wordplay has. Here is the current list of required installs:

1. Join the Wordplay Discord and make sure you're on the #contributors channel.
2. If you don't have a GitHub account, create one, and make note of your username.
3. Install Node. If you don't have node installed, install it. And if you don't know if you do, you probably don't. It won't hurt to install it again. This allows you to install all of the packages that Wordplay depends on to run.
4. Install VS Code. If you don't have VS Code installed, install it. It's a popular code editor, and the one we most recommend for contributing. It also has the best support for TypeScript and Svelte of any editor.
5. Install VS Code Extensions. At a minimum, you'll want "Prettier" and "Svelte for VS Code".
6. Clone the Wordplay repository. Open VS Code, and then find the toolbar icon called "Source Control". Click it, and you'll a panel with a few buttons appears, one labeled "Clone Repository". Click it, then copy and paste https://github.com/amyjko/wordplay into the prompt. Once you enter it, it'll ask you where you want to clone the repository; choose a place on your computer where you want to store it. Remember that this is just a local copy of the repository; any changes you make are local until you submit them as a pull request to GitHub.
7. Open the repository in VS Code. It'll work for a second to get the repository from the internet, then ask you if you want to open it. Say yes. It'll then ask you whether you whether you trust the authors. (Do you? I trust me, but that's me!)
8. Open a terminal. In the VS Code menu, choose Terminal > New Terminal to open up a command line so we can do some work with some commands. Keep this open; you'll be using it later. You may have many open at once.
9. Install dependencies. Type npm ci. This will install all of the code that Wordplay needs to run. If you run into problems, it's likely an issue with how Node was installed, and quite often permissions issues. There are so many things that can go wrong here, so web search on the error you're seeing, or write in #contributors for help.

Once everything above is installed, try this command in a terminal:

npm run dev

That should start a local Vite web server and give you a URL like https://localhost:5173 for you to visit in your browser. You should now see the Wordplay website running on your device. If you don't, there's either a problem with your setup above or Wordplay. Don't worry, it's not your fault. Read any error messages you see, and ask if you need help.

If you want to be able to test things like login and gallery features that require authentication and a database, you'll also need to run the Firebase emulator:

• Install the Firebase command line tools.
• Then, run npm run emu to start the emulator.

Almost everything will work like it does on the live website, but some things --- like logging in --- will be different. Write the #contributors channel on Discord if you're stuck.

Finally -- and this is key -- Wordplay's code and dependencies are always changing, so it's important to run these two commands every once in a while:

git pull
npm ci

The first command pulls new Wordplay code from GitHub and also new code that Wordplay depends on. Think of this like any other software update. Note: don't do a npm update: that will change the versions of installed dependencies, and we want to do that intentionally. ci will preserve dependencies.

If you made it this far, you're all set up! Go back to the page for your role to see next steps.