Kirby Sandbox

The Kirby Sandbox is our local test environment. We use this to work on Kirby and switch between different types of sites and test scenarios. We recommend this setup for all contributors.

Installation

# clone the repo
git clone git@github.com:getkirby/sandbox.git

# step into the sandbox
cd sandbox

# initialize all submodules
git submodule update --init --recursive

# get the Panel up and running
cd kirby/panel
npm i
npm run dev

Virtual Host

We recommend to setup a sandbox.test virtual host for your shiny new sandbox and point it to the /public folder. Otherwise you will need to add an .env file to /kirby/panel and change your host setup there.

Accounts

The sandbox comes with an admin account with the email test@getkirby.com and the password 12345678.

You can manually log in with the user or use the route http://sandbox.test/env/auth/test@getkirby.com to get logged in automatically.

Switching environments

You can switch between the following environments:

• demokit
• starterkit
• plainkit

There are more environments in /environments, but they are used for testing only and often don't have any usable site setup.

You can switch between environments via the environment UI at http://sandbox.test/panel/environments.

Caution

Switching environments will delete all existing content, accounts and sessions in your sandbox (unless you use the "Store" feature, see below)!

Installing accounts when switching envionments

If you switch the environment using the UI, the test@getkirby.com account is automatically installed to the site.

Other accounts can be installed using the following route:

http://sandbox.test/env/user/yourusername

Storing the current state

If you want to store the changes inside the environment, you can use the "Store" buttons in the environment UI.

Clicking just "Store" will store the changes to the selected environment.

Caution

The whole environment will be overwritten!

Clicking "Store & Switch" will first store the changes in the current environment and then switch to the selected new environment.

If you want to create an entirely new environment, enter the name in the text field and click "Store".

Creating environments

New environments can be created in two ways:

• directly in the environments folder or
• from the current public folder contents by using the "Custom" text field and "Store" button in the UI.

Environments may contain submodules (e.g. for plugins), but with the following caveats:

• The submodule must be initialized inside environments/<your-environment>, never inside public. Otherwise the submodule will break once the environment is switched or stored. Also the initialization of the submodules after cloning the Sandbox repo would not work with submodules that were initialized inside public.
• Changes inside the submodule while it's in public will directly reflect on the original submodule in environments. Changes can be discarded using Git inside the submodule, but not by switching to the environment again. This is because each submodule is linked to the environment directory with a symlink, so changes inside the submodule are in fact performed in the environment folder.