Preparation

Requirements

What your machine needs for local development – and what the setup app installs automatically.

On this page

What you need yourself

  • A machine running macOS, Windows, or Linux with admin rights (to install the tools).
  • Your Application Platform account – the setup app signs in with it and loads your projects.
  • Docker Desktop or another Docker environment if your project contains a backend with a database. The setup app checks for Docker during developer setup.

What the setup app installs for you

During developer setup, the setup app checks and installs the required tools:

Area Tools
Basics Git, version manager (asdf on macOS/Linux; FVM/NVM on Windows)
Runtimes Node.js, Flutter, Java, Hugo, Python, PHP, Ruby – matching your projects’ .tool-versions
Platform ap CLI, Application Platform extension for VS Code/Cursor
Mobile (optional) Android SDK, Xcode + CocoaPods (macOS)
AI tools (optional) Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Antigravity
IDEs (optional) VS Code, IntelliJ IDEA

You don’t have to install anything by hand – if something is missing, the setup app shows the status per tool.

Note
Runtime versions are pinned per repository in the .tool-versions file, so everyone on the team uses exactly the same versions.

Next steps