itsual Local Development Experience
Overview
Developer time is expensive. A smooth local development experience compounds productivity across the whole team.
When to Use
- New project setup or major DX improvements
- Onboarding takes too long or is error-prone
- “Works on my machine” problems are frequent
Key Areas
- One-command (or few-command) environment setup
- Realistic local dependencies (containers, seeds, mocks)
- Fast test and feedback loops
- Clear documentation for common tasks
- Consistent tooling versions (editions, asdf, mise, devcontainers, etc.)
- Good defaults with escape hatches for power users
Principles
- Optimize for the common case of a new or returning developer
- Make the happy path obvious and reliable
- Treat developer experience as a product
Verification
- A new developer can get a basic environment running in a short, documented time
- Common development tasks have clear, working instructions
- Local environment drift is minimized