Frappe is the web framework that powers ERPNext. If you want to build custom apps or just understand how ERPNext works under the hood, you need to set up Frappe first. This guide covers the complete setup on macOS.

Pre-requisites

macOS 12+
Homebrew
Python 3.10+
Node.js 18
MariaDB 10.6+
Redis

STEP 1 Install Homebrew

/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"

STEP 2 Install Python and Dependencies

brew install python@3.11
brew install git
pip3 install virtualenv

STEP 3 Install MariaDB

brew install mariadb
brew services start mariadb
mysql_secure_installation

Configure the character encoding. Open the config file:

sudo nano /opt/homebrew/etc/my.cnf

Add:

[mysqld]
character-set-client-handshake = FALSE
character-set-server = utf8mb4
collation-server = utf8mb4_unicode_ci

[mysql]
default-character-set = utf8mb4

brew services restart mariadb

STEP 4 Install Redis and Node.js

brew install redis node
brew services start redis
npm install -g yarn

STEP 5 Install wkhtmltopdf

brew install wkhtmltopdf

STEP 6 Install Frappe Bench

pip3 install frappe-bench
bench --version

STEP 7 Initialize a New Bench

This creates the bench directory and downloads the Frappe framework.

bench init frappe-bench --frappe-branch version-15
cd frappe-bench

STEP 8 Create Your First Site

bench new-site myapp.local
bench --site myapp.local add-to-hosts

STEP 9 Create a Custom App

This is where it gets interesting. You can now scaffold your own Frappe app.

bench new-app my_custom_app
bench --site myapp.local install-app my_custom_app

STEP 10 Start the Development Server

bench start

Open your browser and go to:

http://myapp.local:8000

You now have a working Frappe development environment. From here you can create Doctypes, build APIs, add web pages, and develop full applications on the Frappe framework.