In addition to running Open edX in production, Tutor can be used for local development of Open edX. This means it is possible to hack on Open edX without setting up a Virtual Machine. Essentially, this replaces the devstack provided by edX.
You should setup real host names for the LMS and the CMS (i.e: not "localhost"). It is not necessary to configure the DNS records for local development: in other words, it doesn't matter that the chosen domain names exist or not for your platform, as the LMS and the CMS will be accessed on ``localhost``. You should *not* activate HTTPS certificates, which will not work locally.
To run any command inside one of the containers, run ``tutor dev run [OPTIONS] SERVICE [COMMAND] [ARGS]...``. For instance, to open a bash shell in the LMS or CMS containers::
tutor dev run lms bash
tutor dev run cms bash
To open a python shell in the LMS or CMS, run::
tutor dev run lms ./manage.py lms shell
tutor dev run cms ./manage.py cms shell
You can then import edx-platform and django modules and execute python code.
If you have one, you can point to a local version of `edx-platform <https://github.com/edx/edx-platform/>`_ on your host machine. To do so, pass a ``-P/--edx-platform-path`` option to the commands. For instance::
**Note:** containers are built on the Ironwood release. If you are working on a different version of Open edX, you will have to rebuild the ``openedx`` docker images with the version. See the :ref:`fork edx-platform section <edx_platform_fork>`.
With Tutor, it's pretty easy to develop your own themes. Start by placing your files inside the ``env/build/openedx/themes`` directory. For instance, you could start from the ``edx.org`` theme present inside the ``edx-platform`` repository::
Then, follow the `Open edX documentation to apply your themes <https://edx.readthedocs.io/projects/edx-installing-configuring-and-running/en/latest/configuration/changing_appearance/theming/enable_themes.html#apply-a-theme-to-a-site>`_. You will not have to modify the ``lms.env.json``/``cms.env.json`` files; just follow the instructions to add a site theme in http://localhost:8000/admin (starting from step 3).
Make changes to some of the files inside the theme directory: the theme assets should be automatically recompiled and visible at http://localhost:8000.
By default, tutor settings files are mounted inside the docker images at ``/openedx/edx-platform/lms/envs/tutor/`` and ``/openedx/edx-platform/cms/envs/tutor/``. In the various ``dev`` commands, the default ``edx-platform`` settings module is set to ``tutor.development`` and you don't have to do anything to set up these settings.
If, for some reason, you want to use different settings, you will need to pass the ``-S/--edx-platform-settings`` option to each command. Alternatively, you can define the ``TUTOR_EDX_PLATFORM_SETTINGS`` environment variable.
For instance, let's assume you have created the ``/path/to/edx-platform/lms/envs/mysettings.py`` and ``/path/to/edx-platform/cms/envs/mysettings.py`` modules. These settings should be pretty similar to the following files::