Project Recipes¶

These recipes create a new project from scratch in a freeform workspace. They follow DDEV’s CMS quickstarts with the one extra step that a workspace needs: ddev coder-setup.

Each recipe assumes the project name is registered in the workspace’s DDEV project names (see Creating a workspace). Replace my-site with your project name.

The pattern is always the same

ddev config --project-name=<name> ..., then ddev coder-setup, then ddev start. For any framework not listed here, use the matching DDEV quickstart and add ddev coder-setup before ddev start.

WordPress¶

mkdir ~/my-site && cd ~/my-site
ddev config --project-name=my-site --project-type=wordpress
ddev coder-setup
ddev start
ddev wp core download
ddev wp core install --url='$DDEV_PRIMARY_URL' --title='My site' \
  --admin_user=admin --admin_password=admin --admin_email=admin@example.com
ddev launch /wp-admin/

WordPress site URL

WordPress stores its own URL in the database. DDEV sets WP_HOME and WP_SITEURL for the project’s *.ddev.site address, which isn’t reachable through the workspace. If links or redirects point at *.ddev.site, set both to the workspace URL that ddev launch shows, in wp-config.php before DDEV’s settings include, or with ddev wp option update home <url> and ddev wp option update siteurl <url>.

Laravel¶

mkdir ~/my-site && cd ~/my-site
ddev config --project-name=my-site --project-type=laravel --docroot=public
ddev coder-setup
ddev start
ddev composer create-project laravel/laravel .
ddev launch

Symfony¶

mkdir ~/my-site && cd ~/my-site
ddev config --project-name=my-site --project-type=symfony --docroot=public
ddev coder-setup
ddev start
ddev composer create-project symfony/skeleton .
ddev launch

Drupal site¶

For a Drupal site (not Drupal core development, which has its own template):

mkdir ~/my-site && cd ~/my-site
ddev config --project-name=my-site --project-type=drupal11 --docroot=web
ddev coder-setup
ddev start
ddev composer create-project drupal/recommended-project .
ddev composer require drush/drush
ddev drush site:install --account-name=admin --account-pass=admin -y
ddev launch

Use ddev drush uli for a one-time login link; open it through ddev launch or replace the host with your workspace URL.

Drupal CMS¶

mkdir ~/my-site && cd ~/my-site
ddev config --project-name=my-site --project-type=drupal11 --docroot=web
ddev coder-setup
ddev start
ddev composer create-project drupal/cms .
ddev launch

TYPO3¶

mkdir ~/my-site && cd ~/my-site
ddev config --project-name=my-site --project-type=typo3 --docroot=public
ddev coder-setup
ddev start
ddev composer create-project typo3/cms-base-distribution .
ddev exec touch public/FIRST_INSTALL
ddev launch /typo3/install.php

Craft CMS¶

mkdir ~/my-site && cd ~/my-site
ddev config --project-name=my-site --project-type=craftcms --docroot=web
ddev coder-setup
ddev start
ddev composer create-project craftcms/craft .
ddev launch

Static HTML or plain PHP¶

mkdir -p ~/my-site/public && cd ~/my-site
echo '<?php phpinfo();' > public/index.php
ddev config --project-name=my-site --project-type=php --docroot=public
ddev coder-setup
ddev start
ddev launch

Node.js app¶

DDEV can run a Node.js server in its web container with web_extra_daemons and web_extra_exposed_ports. A minimal example with Express:

mkdir ~/my-site && cd ~/my-site
ddev config --project-name=my-site --project-type=generic --webserver-type=generic
ddev coder-setup
cat > .ddev/config.node.yaml <<'YAML'
web_extra_daemons:
  - name: node
    command: "node server.js"
    directory: /var/www/html
web_extra_exposed_ports:
  - name: node
    container_port: 3000
    http_port: 80
    https_port: 443
YAML
ddev start
ddev npm init -y
ddev npm install express
cat > server.js <<'JS'
const app = require('express')();
app.get('/', (req, res) => res.send('Hello from DDEV on Coder'));
app.listen(3000);
JS
ddev restart
ddev launch

See DDEV’s documentation on extra daemons and exposed ports for more.

Front-end dev servers (Vite and friends)¶

A dev server running inside the web container needs to know the public URL it is served from. ddev coder-setup puts these variables into the web container for that purpose: CODER, CODER_AGENT_URL, CODER_WORKSPACE_NAME, CODER_WORKSPACE_OWNER_NAME, CODER_WORKSPACE_AGENT_NAME and VSCODE_PROXY_URI. Use them in your dev server’s configuration to allow the workspace’s hostname and to set the HMR host. See the URL patterns reference for how the hostnames are built, and DDEV’s Vite documentation for a general Vite setup.