Prerequisites

The tools you need depend on which projects you plan to work on. This page lists all required software organized by development area, from the universal requirements to platform-specific toolchains.

Before You Begin

• Review the Project Overview to determine which projects you want to work on
• Have administrator access on your development machine for installing software

All Projects

These are required regardless of which project you work on:

Tool	Version	Notes
Node.js	20+	Version 22+ required for B1App and LessonsApp (Next.js 16)
npm	Comes with Node.js	Used as the package manager across all projects
Git	Latest	Each project is a separate repository

tip

Use a Node version manager like nvm (macOS/Linux) or nvm-windows (Windows) to switch between Node versions easily.

Backend API Development

If you plan to run the API locally (rather than pointing to staging):

Tool	Version	Notes
MySQL	8.0+	Each API module uses its own database

You will need six databases for the core API: membership, attendance, content, giving, messaging, and doing. The API includes scripts to initialize the schema -- see the API local setup guide.

Mobile App Development

For B1Mobile, B1Checkin, LessonsScreen, or other React Native / Expo apps:

Tool	Version	Notes
Expo CLI	Latest	Install globally: npm install -g expo-cli
Android Studio	Latest	Required for Android development (includes Android SDK)
Xcode	Latest	Required for iOS development (macOS only)

info

You can use the Expo Go app on a physical device for quick testing without Android Studio or Xcode. However, building production binaries requires the native toolchains.

FreeShow (Desktop App) Development

FreeShow has additional native build dependencies because it compiles native Node modules (like canvas):

All Platforms

Tool	Version	Notes
Python	3.12	Required by node-gyp for native module compilation
setuptools	Latest	Install via pip install setuptools

Windows

Tool	Notes
Visual Studio	Community edition is sufficient
"Desktop development with C++" workload	Select during Visual Studio installation
Windows 10 SDK	Included in the C++ workload; ensure it is checked

You can install the Visual Studio build tools via the command line:

npm install --global windows-build-tools

Or install Visual Studio Community and select the "Desktop development with C++" workload during installation.

Linux

sudo apt-get install libfontconfig1-dev

macOS

Xcode Command Line Tools are typically sufficient:

xcode-select --install

Verify Your Installation

Run these commands to confirm everything is installed:

node --version    # Should print v20.x.x or higher
npm --version     # Should print 10.x.x or higher
git --version     # Should print git version 2.x.x
mysql --version   # Only needed for local API development

Next Steps

• Project Overview -- See all projects and what they do
• Environment Variables -- Configure your .env files