Prerequisites¶

Install these tools before setting up the project. The setup script assumes all of them are available on your PATH.

Required Tools¶

PHP 8.1+¶

WordPress and all custom code require PHP 8.1 or later. PHP is used by Composer, the linting tools (Pint, phpcs), PHPStan, and the PHPUnit test suite.

php --version

On macOS, install via Homebrew:

brew install php

Composer 2.x¶

Composer manages WordPress core, plugins, themes, and development tools (Pint, PHPStan, phpcs). The entire dependency tree --- including WordPress itself --- is defined in composer.json.

composer --version

Docker Desktop or OrbStack¶

The local development environment runs WordPress and MariaDB in containers via Docker Compose. OrbStack is the recommended alternative to Docker Desktop on macOS for better performance.

docker --version
docker compose version

Node.js 18+¶

Node.js powers the frontend build pipeline: Sass compilation, Stylelint (SCSS linting), ESLint (JS linting), and Husky (pre-commit hooks).

node --version
npm --version

Git¶

The repository is hosted on GitHub under the Tinnitus-App organization. You need SSH access configured for cloning and pushing.

git --version

Optional Tools¶

WP-CLI¶

WP-CLI is available inside the Docker container. You do not need it installed on your host --- run it via Docker Compose:

docker compose exec wordpress wp --allow-root <command>

Verifying Your Setup¶

Run these checks to confirm everything is ready:

php --version          # 8.1 or later
composer --version     # 2.x
docker compose version # Docker Compose v2
node --version         # 18.x or later
git --version

Note

You do not need a local MariaDB/MySQL installation. The database runs inside Docker.

Once all tools are confirmed, proceed to Setup.