Step 1: Environment Setup

Goal: Install all the necessary tools and create your accounts to start building web-based psychology experiments.

Required Tools

You will need to install the following free tools to build, manage, and deploy your experiment:

🎯 What You'll Install

🚀 Setup Instructions

Follow these steps in order to set up your development environment:

1. Create GitHub Account

  1. Go to github.com
  2. Click "Sign up" and create your account
  3. Choose a username you're comfortable sharing (it will be in your experiment URLs)
  4. Verify your email address
💡 Tip: Your username will appear in URLs like username.github.io

2. Install Code Editor

Recommended: Cursor (AI-powered coding assistant)

  1. Download from cursor.sh
  2. Install and launch the application
  3. Follow the setup wizard

Alternative: VS Code

  1. Download from code.visualstudio.com
  2. Install the GitHub extension for easier integration

3. Install Git

Windows:

  1. Download from git-scm.com
  2. Run installer with default settings
  3. Open Command Prompt and type:
git --version

Mac:

  1. Open Terminal
  2. Type git --version (this will prompt installation if needed)
  3. Or install via Homebrew:
brew install git

Linux:

Ubuntu/Debian:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install git

CentOS/RHEL/Fedora:

sudo dnf install git

or for older versions:

sudo yum install git

Arch Linux:

sudo pacman -S git

Verify installation:

git --version

4. Configure Git

Open your terminal/command prompt and run these commands with your actual information:

git config --global user.name "Your Name"
git config --global user.email "your.email@example.com"
💡 Use the same email as your GitHub account. Replace the placeholder text with your actual name and email.

✅ Step 1 Completion Checklist

← Back to Step 0 Next: Repository Setup →

Step 1 of 7 - Environment Setup Complete