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Environment Setup

Instance Details​

Each student gets a freshly provisioned EC2 instance with the following services:

🔧 Services Running​

ServiceURLUserPassword
code-server (IDE)https://ide-{domain}coderfellowship
Jenkins (CI/CD)https://jenkins-{domain}fellowshipfellowship123
Gitea (Git/Repo)https://gitea-{domain}fellowshipfellowship123
MailHog (Email)http://localhost:8025--

📁 Directory Structure​

After exercises are extracted, your filesystem looks like:

~/fellowship/                          # Your workspace
├── exercises/                         # All exercise code
│   ├── ex1-react-foundation/
│   │   ├── starter/                   # Starting code
│   │   ├── solution/                  # Reference solution
│   │   └── README.md                  # Instructions
│   ├── ex2-jenkins-mcp/
│   ├── ex3-watcher-agent/
│   ├── ex4-gitea-mcp/
│   └── ex5-grand-finale/
├── shared/                            # Shared utilities
│   ├── config.py
│   ├── event_sourcing/
│   └── requirements.txt
└── README.md

First Time Setup​

1. Access the IDE​

# Open in browser:
https://ide-{domain}/

2. Open a Terminal​

In code-server:

  • View → Terminal or Ctrl + ~

3. Navigate to Exercises​

cd ~/fellowship/exercises
ls -la

4. Create a Python Virtual Environment​

For exercises that need Python:

python3 -m venv venv
source venv/bin/activate
pip install -r ../shared/requirements.txt

5. Set Up Git Configuration​

git config --global user.email "{your-email}"
git config --global user.name "{your-name}"

Verify Setup​

Run this to check everything is working:

# Check services
docker compose ps

# Check Python
python3 --version

# Check Node
node --version

# Check Git
git --version

# Check exercises exist
ls -la exercises/

All commands should return version numbers and show exercises directory.

Common Issues & Solutions​

Q: Can't connect to code-server?

  • Wait 3-5 minutes for full boot
  • Verify URL matches your instance domain
  • Check browser console for network errors

Q: Services not running (docker compose ps shows nothing)?

  • Check cloud-init logs: cat /var/log/cloud-init-output.log | tail -100
  • Restart services: docker compose up -d
  • Allow 5-10 minutes for containers to fully initialize

Q: Permission denied on exercises

  • Exercises should be readable in /opt/exercises
  • If needed: chmod -R 755 ~/fellowship

Q: Python dependencies missing?

  • Activate venv: source venv/bin/activate
  • Install: pip install -r shared/requirements.txt

Next Steps​

Once setup is complete:

  1. Explore the exercises directory
  2. Read the README files in each exercise folder
  3. Choose your starting exercise
  4. Follow the learning path in the documentation

Continue to Learning Path →