Set up your development environment

Gogs is written in Go, please take A Tour of Go if you haven't done so!

Outline

• Environment
• Step 1: Install dependencies
• Step 2: Initialize your database
• Step 3: Get the code
• Step 4: Configure database settings
• Step 5: Start the server
• Other nice things

Environment

Gogs is built and runs as a single binary and meant to be cross platform. Therefore, you should be able to develop Gogs in any major platforms you prefer.

Step 1: Install dependencies

Gogs has the following dependencies:

• Git (v1.8.3 or higher)
• Go (v1.18 or higher)
• Less.js
• Task (v3)
• goimports
• go-mockgen
• Database upon your choice (pick one, we choose PostgreSQL in this document):
  • PostgreSQL (v9.6 or higher)
  • MySQL with ENGINE=InnoDB (v5.7 or higher)
  • SQLite3
  • TiDB

macOS

1. Install Homebrew.

2. Install dependencies:

   brew install go postgresql git npm go-task/tap/go-task
   npm install -g less
   npm install -g less-plugin-clean-css
   go install github.com/derision-test/go-mockgen/cmd/go-mockgen@v1.3.3
   go install golang.org/x/tools/cmd/goimports@latest

3. Configure PostgreSQL to start automatically:

   brew services start postgresql

4. Ensure psql, the PostgreSQL command line client, is on your $PATH. Homebrew does not put it there by default. Homebrew gives you the command to run to insert psql in your path in the "Caveats" section of brew info postgresql. Alternatively, you can use the command below. It might need to be adjusted depending on your Homebrew prefix (/usr/local below) and shell (bash below).

   hash psql || { echo 'export PATH="/usr/local/opt/postgresql/bin:$PATH"' >> ~/.bash_profile }
   source ~/.bash_profile

Ubuntu

1. Add package repositories:

   curl -sL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_10.x | sudo -E bash -

2. Update repositories:

   sudo apt-get update

3. Install dependencies:

   sudo apt install -y make git-all postgresql postgresql-contrib golang-go nodejs
   npm install -g less
   go install github.com/go-task/task/v3/cmd/task@latest
   go install github.com/derision-test/go-mockgen/cmd/go-mockgen@v1.3.3
   go install golang.org/x/tools/cmd/goimports@latest

4. Configure startup services:

   sudo systemctl enable postgresql

Step 2: Initialize your database

You need a fresh Postgres database and a database user that has full ownership of that database.

1. Create a database for the current Unix user:

   # For Linux users, first access the postgres user shell
   sudo su - postgres

   createdb

2. Create the Gogs user and password:

   createuser --superuser gogs
   psql -c "ALTER USER gogs WITH PASSWORD '<YOUR PASSWORD HERE>';"

3. Create the Gogs database

   createdb --owner=gogs --encoding=UTF8 --template=template0 gogs

Step 3: Get the code

Generally, you don't need a full clone, so set --depth to 10:

git clone --depth 10 https://github.com/gogs/gogs.git

NOTE The repository has Go modules enabled, please clone to somewhere outside of your $GOPATH.

Step 4: Configure database settings

Create a custom/conf/app.ini file inside the repository and put the following configuration (everything under custom/ directory is used to override default files and is excluded by .gitignore):

[database]
TYPE = postgres
HOST = 127.0.0.1:5432
NAME = gogs
USER = gogs
PASSWORD = <YOUR PASSWORD HERE>
SSL_MODE = disable

Step 5: Start the server

The following command will start the web server and automatically recompile and restart the server if any Go files changed:

task web --watch

NOTE If you changed any file under conf/, template/ or public/ directory, be sure to run task generate afterwards!

Other nice things

Load HTML templates and static files from disk

When you are actively working on HTML templates and static files during development, you may want to enable the following configuration to avoid recompiling and restarting Gogs every time you make a change to files under template/ and public/ directories:

RUN_MODE = dev

[server]
LOAD_ASSETS_FROM_DISK = true

Offline development

Sometimes you will want to develop Gogs but it just so happens you will be on a plane or a train or perhaps a beach, and you will have no WiFi. And you may raise your fist toward heaven and say something like, "Why, we can put a man on the moon, so why can't we develop high-quality Git hosting without an Internet connection?" But lower your hand back to your keyboard and fret no further, you can develop Gogs with no connectivity by setting the following configuration in your custom/conf/app.ini:

[server]
OFFLINE_MODE = true