Gitpod Rocket.Chat Development Environment Setup

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This documentation is based on Gitpod Flex.

The fastest way to set up a Rocket.Chat development environment is by using Gitpod. Gitpod provides a hosted development workspace accessible through your browser, making it easy to contribute to Rocket.Chat without configuring a local environment.

Follow the steps below to configure your Rocket.Chat development environment in Gitpod.

Prerequisites

Before you begin, make sure you have completed the following:

  1. Create a GitHub account.

  2. Sign up for a Gitpod account.

  3. Generate a GitHub Personal Access Token (PAT), if you don’t already have one.

  4. Set up a runner for your Gitpod development environment using one of the following options:

    • Gitpod Desktop for local development

    • Remote self-hosted runners such as AWS

  5. Fork the Rocket.Chat GitHub repository to your GitHub account.

Step 1: Create a Gitpod environment

Once your runner is ready:

  1. Navigate to Gitpod’s environment setup page.

  2. Provide the URL of your forked Rocket.Chat repository.

  3. Select the appropriate environment class (your runner).

Step 2: Authenticate and connect to GitHub

  1. Generate a GitHub Personal Access Token (PAT), if you don’t already have one.

  2. Add the token to your Gitpod account to enable authentication and repository access.

Step 3: Launch the project

  1. Start the Gitpod environment for your forked Rocket.Chat repository.

  2. The environment launch may take a few minutes while it performs the following:

    • Clones the repository

    • Loads secrets (environment variables) and automation

    • Starts the development container

Working with Rocket.Chat

Once your Gitpod environment is running, follow the steps below to build, run, and interact with your Rocket.Chat development instance.

Step

Description

  1. Open Rocket.Chat in VS Code

After the environment is running, click Open VS Code in the top-right corner of the Gitpod workspace. This opens the Rocket.Chat project in VS Code.

  1. Start the Rocket.Chat server

In the Gitpod environment page, scroll down to the Services section and click Start to build the project. This runs the required build commands.

  1. Verify port 3000

Open the terminal in VS Code and navigate to the Ports tab. Confirm that port 3000 is open and associated with the development container.

  1. Access the application

Open your browser and navigate to http://localhost:3000. You should see your Rocket.Chat app running.

  1. Make changes

Edit files directly in the VS Code instance. Rebuild the project by starting or stopping services as needed to reflect your changes in the browser.

Always pull the latest changes from the Rocket.Chat upstream repository to stay up to date.