boundary/website/pages/docs/installing/dev-mode.mdx

---
layout: docs
page_title: Development Mode
sidebar_title: Dev Mode
description: |-
  How to install Boundary in development mode
---

# Development Mode

Dev mode is an all-in-one installation method for getting started with Boundary quickly. As the name implies,
dev mode is not a production installation method, but instead a way to get Boundary running with a Postgres
database easily. Do not use dev mode in a production environment, see our "Production Installation" section for
production ready deployment methods.

Dev mode brings up a fully functioning instance of Boundary, including:

1. A controller server
2. A worker server
3. A Postgres database

These components should all be considered ephemeral - no data persistence occurs across dev mode restarts. It's
strongly recommended that users leverage our [Terraform Provider for Boundary](https://github.com/hashicorp/terraform-provider-boundary) for managing configuration
of Boundary. This will simplify starting up and shutting down your Boundary dev instance.

## Assumptions

There are a few requirements for running dev mode:

1. Docker is installed
2. A route to download the [Postgres Docker image](https://hub.docker.com/_/postgres) is available or a local image cache is available

## Run

To start Boundary in dev mode:

```bash
./boundary dev
```

The above is the most simple way to start the Boundary server in dev mode. However, there are likely some overrides you'll want to configure when
doing so, these include:

1. Auth method ID
2. Auth method password
3. Account login name

To use these overrides, set the following flags:

```bash
./boundary dev -dev-auth-method-id=ampw_0000000000 -dev-password=foofoofoo -dev-login-name=foo
```

Setting these allows you to configure hardcoded auth method ID, password, and login name. You can then use these hardcoded values when configuring clients
such as the Terraform Provider, or when logging into the admin console.

An example using these values to configure your Terraform provider instance for Boundary:

```hcl
 provider "boundary" {
    base_url             = "http://127.0.0.1:9200"
    auth_method_id       = "ampw_0000000000"
    auth_method_username = "foo"
    auth_method_password = "foofoofoo"
}
```

Note in the example above we're setting `base_url` to `http` and not `https` as the Boundary server does not use TLS in development mode.

## User Interface

The UI is normally compiled into the Boundary binary at build time.
However, it would be impractical to rebuild the binary on every change when
actively developing the UI.  To make UI development more convenient, the binary
supports a _passthrough directory_.  This is an arbitrary local
directory from which UI assets are served.  Note this option is only available
in dev mode.  For example:

```bash
BOUNDARY_DEV_PASSTHROUGH_DIRECTORY=../boundary-ui/ui/core/dist ./boundary dev
```