Need help with setting up dev environment for ERPNext and understanding previous work

Install / Update Setup
1

Hello everyone,

I am going to keep this simple.

I was hired recently as a software developer for a company that uses ERPNext platform. There was only one developer who developed their system previously and he left the company in bad terms. The system is not finished yet, and needs to be updated according to new user stories and requirements.

The things I have access to right now from my company to do my job are following:

  1. The erpnext company website access (the erpnext dashboard).
  2. Github repositories.
  3. Vultr (Everything is running on Vultr apperently).

I am unsure if there is any test environment set up.

I have the following queries:

  1. What should be my initial steps in setting up my dev environment? What are the things that need to be installed on my machine and where do I start writing/changing the code?

  2. Where does Vultr fit in all of this?

  3. How to understand the work that was done by the previous developer?

I will be putting a lot of effort in learning all this but I need some initial guidance so I have everything set up and can start working on my user stories. I would be really grateful if someone can give me answers to my questions and point me in the right direction.

Thank you.

2

To setup a dev environment you will have to install frappe and ERPNext same versions as the one on the production environment.
If it is v11 then you’ll have to check which python version is being used by the virtual env.
If it is <v11 then you want python2.7; >v11 you want python3
You can do that by going in to the bench folder and run

env/bin/python -V

Follow this guide to install bench
After you have installed bench, you will have to initialize it.
While initializing specify which frappe version you want installed and which python version you want to be used by the venv.
Something like this

bench init frappe-bench --frappe-branch version-11 --python {/path/to/python-executable}

After that is done install same version of erpnext

bench get-app --branch version-11 erpnext

If it is >v11 just follow the guide to install frappe and ERPNext you’ll be fine.

The github repositories will probably have the customization written as a separate app. You will have to install those.

bench get-app http://path/to/git-repo

Create a mysql dump from production and restore on dev.

Write code, run tests, push to github, Pull to production

To understand how Frappe Framework
https://frappeframework.com/docs

3

Thank you so much for the information. I will follow as you mentioned, and if I have any more questions, I will get back to you here.