Dev / IT8 min read

New Developer Onboarding Checklist: Set Up Your Dev Environment Fast

Everything a new developer or a team needs to set up a fresh development environment — SSH keys, Git config, editor setup, package managers, environment variables, and team conventions.

Whether you're a new developer setting up your first machine or a team lead onboarding someone new, this checklist covers everything needed to go from zero to productive. Follow it in order — each step builds on the previous.

1. SSH Keys

# Generate Ed25519 key pair
ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -C "[email protected]"
# Accept default location (~/.ssh/id_ed25519)
# Set a passphrase (recommended)

# Add to GitHub: github.com → Settings → SSH and GPG keys → New SSH key
cat ~/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub  # Copy this

# Test
ssh -T [email protected]  # "Hi username! You've successfully authenticated"

2. Git Configuration

git config --global user.name "Your Name"
git config --global user.email "[email protected]"
git config --global core.editor "code --wait"   # VS Code
git config --global init.defaultBranch main
git config --global pull.rebase false           # Use merge for pulls

# Useful aliases
git config --global alias.st status
git config --global alias.co checkout
git config --global alias.lg "log --oneline --graph --all"

3. Clone the Repository

# Always clone via SSH (not HTTPS) for developer machines
git clone [email protected]:company/repo.git

cd repo
ls -la  # Look for .env.example, README.md, package.json

4. Environment Variables

# Copy the example env file
cp .env.example .env

# Fill in values from team password manager / documentation
# NEVER commit .env — verify it's in .gitignore
cat .gitignore | grep .env  # Should appear

# Common variables to ask the team about:
# DATABASE_URL, JWT_SECRET, API keys (Stripe, SendGrid, etc.)

5. Install Dependencies

# Node.js projects
npm install          # or
yarn install         # or
pnpm install

# Python projects
python3 -m venv venv
source venv/bin/activate   # Mac/Linux
pip install -r requirements.txt

# Check if there's a Docker option (often faster)
docker compose up   # Spins up everything

6. Run the Project

# Check package.json / Makefile / README for the start command
npm run dev        # Most Node.js projects
python manage.py runserver  # Django

# Verify it works at localhost:3000 (or whatever port)
# Run the tests
npm test
pytest

7. Editor Setup (VS Code)

# Install from the command line
code --install-extension dbaeumer.vscode-eslint
code --install-extension esbenp.prettier-vscode
code --install-extension eamodio.gitlens
code --install-extension bradlc.vscode-tailwindcss
code --install-extension ms-python.python  # If Python project

# Check if the repo has .vscode/settings.json for team config
ls .vscode/

8. Team Conventions to Learn

  • Branch naming: feature/description, fix/bug-name, chore/task
  • Commit message format (conventional commits or team standard)
  • PR review process: how many approvals, who reviews what
  • Deployment process: how does code get to staging/production?
  • On-call rotation: who gets paged when production breaks?
  • Where is documentation: Notion, Confluence, GitHub Wiki?
  • How to get help: Slack channel, pairing sessions, office hours?

9. First Week Goals

  • Get the project running locally ✅
  • Make a small, safe change and open a PR
  • Have your first PR reviewed and merged
  • Attend one team standup / meeting
  • Read the last 3 postmortems (understand what broke and why)
  • Ask about the most confusing part of the codebase
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