Get a local instance of Drupal up and running fast with DDEV

This is the quickest way I’ve found to get a local instance of Drupal up and running on macOS. Deployment — a whole other subject — isn’t covered in this post.

Requirements permalink

If you have not already done so, install the following tools:

1. Docker Desktop
2. Homebrew: /bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"
3. Composer: brew install composer
4. Node/npm: brew install node
5. DDEV: brew tap drud/ddev && brew install ddev
6. mkcert: mkcert -install

Installation permalink

I initially followed this Digital Ocean guide and distilled the key steps into the below sequence. (The Digital Ocean tutorial also covers Linux.)

1. mkdir <project-name>
2. cd <project-name>
3. ddev config --project-type=drupal9 --docroot=web --create-docroot
4. ddev start
5. ddev composer create "drupal/recommended-project"
6. ddev composer require "drush/drush"
   • If you get a PHP version error running this command:
     1. Update php_version in .ddev/config.yaml
     2. ddev restart
     3. Run step 6 again
7. ddev exec drush site:install --account-name=admin --account-pass=admin (or replace admin with a more secure username and password)
   • Alternatively, if you have an existing website, import a database dump of it, eg ddev import-db --src=private/backups/db.sql
8. Modify the path for the config files in the DDEV settings file: sed -i '' "s|^# \\\$settings\['config_sync_directory'\].*|\$settings['config_sync_directory'] = '../config/sync';|" web/sites/default/settings.php
9. ddev launch

The new Drupal site, with the URL https://<project-name>.ddev.site/, should now open in your browser.

That’s it permalink

I also tend to install Bootstrap5 as a starter theme: composer require 'drupal/bootstrap5:^3.0'. And these modules:

1. Simple XML sitemap: composer require 'drupal/simple_sitemap' then ddev drush pm:enable simple_sitemap
2. Admin Toolbar: composer require 'drupal/admin_toolbar' then ddev drush pm:enable admin_toolbar

At this point you might commit the code to a git repo, then get on with developing your site.

If you have any corrections or optimisations, please comment below.