Saleor Core Hacking: Setting Up Your Development Environment

Saleor is a headless e-commerce platform that's biggest deficit is its lack of documentation. If you want to modify Saleor Core directly to create PRs, or in my case, modify its core functionality directly, setting up the development environment is not straightforward. I'm writing this out for both my future reference and to help anyone else in the same situation. My environment is Windows, PyCharm and Docker Desktop. Note that if you're only interested in Saleor App development, these instructions are not for you. This is only for anyone needing to change core functionality or to submit PRs. Step 1: Clone the repository git clone https://github.com/saleor/saleor.git Step 2: Open the project in PyCharm and it should notify you of the presence of a devcontainer. Allow it to set up the devcontainer. If it doesn't prompt you, open the .devcontainer/devcontainer.json file and click on the small box to create it. At this point the supporting containers will be running, but Core won't respond to any requests. Step 3: Open the Services panel (Alt+8) and drill down to the saleor container. Step 4: Click on the Terminal button on the right side of the Services panel. Step 5: Run the following commands: # Install any missing dependencies $ poetry install # Copy the environment variables file $ cp .env.example .env # Update the database structure $ python manage.py migrate # Create a super user $ python manage.py createsuperuser Email youremail@example.com Password: Password (again): Superuser created successfully. # Populate the DB with example data, if you need to $ python manage.py populatedb # Run the server $ python manage.py runserver 0.0.0.0:8000 Then access your dashboard at http://localhost:9000 and you should be able to log in.

Apr 3, 2025 - 10:03

Saleor Core Hacking: Setting Up Your Development Environment

Saleor is a headless e-commerce platform that's biggest deficit is its lack of documentation.

If you want to modify Saleor Core directly to create PRs, or in my case, modify its core functionality directly, setting up the development environment is not straightforward. I'm writing this out for both my future reference and to help anyone else in the same situation.

My environment is Windows, PyCharm and Docker Desktop.

Note that if you're only interested in Saleor App development, these instructions are not for you. This is only for anyone needing to change core functionality or to submit PRs.

Step 1: Clone the repository

git clone https://github.com/saleor/saleor.git

Step 2: Open the project in PyCharm and it should notify you of the presence of a devcontainer. Allow it to set up the devcontainer. If it doesn't prompt you, open the .devcontainer/devcontainer.json file and click on the small box to create it.

At this point the supporting containers will be running, but Core won't respond to any requests.

Step 3: Open the Services panel (Alt+8) and drill down to the saleor container.

Step 4: Click on the Terminal button on the right side of the Services panel.

Step 5: Run the following commands:

# Install any missing dependencies
$ poetry install

# Copy the environment variables file
$ cp .env.example .env

# Update the database structure
$ python manage.py migrate

# Create a super user
$ python manage.py createsuperuser
Email youremail@example.com
Password: 
Password (again): 
Superuser created successfully.

# Populate the DB with example data, if you need to
$ python manage.py populatedb

# Run the server
$ python manage.py runserver 0.0.0.0:8000

Then access your dashboard at http://localhost:9000 and you should be able to log in.