Set Up Your Development Environment

This page gets the server and the client running on your machine and shows how to run the tests. Follow it once when you start working on the project.

Prerequisites

Tool	Version
Java	25
Node.js	24, as declared in engines in package.json
npm	The version that comes with Node.js 24
Git	any recent version

You do not need to install Gradle. The Gradle wrapper (./gradlew) downloads the right version on first use.

Get the code

git clone https://github.com/ls1intum/artemis-feature-model.git
cd artemis-feature-model

The default branch is develop. Pull requests target it.

Run the server

./gradlew bootRun

The server starts on http://localhost:8090. It loads the feature model from the classpath resources in src/main/resources/feature-model/, so it needs no database, no Artemis instance, and no other service. To check that it runs, ask it which model it serves:

curl http://localhost:8090/api/feature-model/provenance

The answer names the source mode classpath and the id and version of the loaded model. Runtime Model explains what the server loads and when it refuses to start.

Run the client

Install the client dependencies once, then start the Angular dev server:

npm install
npm run start

Open http://localhost:9090. The start page is the Configurator; the Explorer is one click away in the navigation bar. The dev server reloads the page when you save a file. It forwards every request below /api to the server on port 8090, as configured in proxy.conf.json, so start the server first.

The ports 8090 and 9090 differ from the Artemis development defaults, 8080 and 9000. You can run this project and a local Artemis side by side.

Run the tests

./gradlew test
npm run test -- --watch=false

The first command runs the server tests, the second runs the client tests once. Testing explains how tests are written and how to force a fresh server test run.

Build one runnable jar

The production build packs the client and the server into one Spring Boot jar:

./gradlew bootJar

The task installs the client dependencies with npm ci, runs the Angular production build into build/webapp/browser, and copies the result into the static resources of the jar. The jar lands in build/libs/. Start it with java -jar and open http://localhost:8090: the server answers the API and serves the client from the same port.

When the client is already built, for example in a CI job or a Docker build, skip the client steps:

./gradlew bootJar -PskipFrontendBuild=true

Use IntelliJ IDEA

The repository ships a shared run configuration, FeatureModelApp, in .idea/runConfigurations/. IntelliJ IDEA picks it up when you open the project. It starts the server with Java 25 after Gradle compiles the classes, which is the same as ./gradlew bootRun.

Common problems

Symptom	Cause and fix
bootRun fails with "Port 8090 was already in use"	Another server instance still runs. Stop it, or start this one on a different port with ./gradlew bootRun --args='--server.port=8091'. The client proxy still points to 8090.
The client shows Could not load the guided configurator.	The server is not running, or it runs on a port other than 8090.
./gradlew test finishes in seconds and runs nothing	Gradle reused an earlier result. Run ./gradlew test --rerun-tasks.
npm install warns about an unsupported engine	Your Node.js version is not 24. Switch to Node.js 24.