UI Development Prerequisites

An Antora UI project is based on tools built atop Node.js (aka Node), namely:

  • Node (command: node)

    • nvm (optional, but strongly recommended)

  • Gulp (command: gulp)

  • Yarn (command: yarn)

You also need git (command: git) to pull down the project and push updates to it.

git

First, make sure you have git installed.

$ git --version

If not, download and install the git package for your system.

Node 8

Next, make sure that you have Node 8 installed. While you can install Node from the official packages, we strongly recommend that you use nvm (Node Version Manager) to install and manage Node. Follow the nvm installation instructions to set up nvm on your machine.

Once you’ve installed nvm, open a new terminal and install Node 8 using the following command:

$ nvm install 8

You can switch to this version of Node at any time using the following command:

$ nvm use 8

To make Node 8 the default in new terminals, type:

$ nvm alias default 8

Now that you have Node 8 installed, you can proceed with installing the Gulp CLI and Yarn.

Gulp CLI

Next, you’ll need the Gulp CLI (aka wrapper). This package provides the gulp command which executes the version of Gulp declared by the project. You should install the Gulp CLI globally (which resolves to a location in your user directory if you’re using nvm) using the following command:

$ npm install -g gulp-cli

Yarn

Finally, you’ll need Yarn, which is the preferred package manager for the Node ecosystem. You’ll need to use the npm command to install Yarn, though this is the last time you’ll use the npm command. You should install Yarn globally (which resolves to a location in your user directory if you’re using nvm) using the following command:

$ npm install -g yarn

Verify Yarn is installed by checking the version:

$ yarn --version

Now that you have Node, Yarn, and Gulp installed, you’re ready to set up the project.