> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.atopile.io/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Development

> How to set up your development environment for atopile.

## Prerequisites

* [Editable atopile install](../quickstart/1-installation)

## Dev tools

VSCode is recommended for development. If nothing else, it has heaps of high quality extensions and atopile language support, plus it's used internally - making it easier to configure for purpose.

You should have at a minimum:

* [Cursor](https://www.cursor.com/) or [VSCode](https://code.visualstudio.com)
* [Cursor / VSCode atopile extension](https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=atopile.atopile) (also works for Cursor)

### Verbosity

You can increase the verbosity of atopile by using the `-v`, `-vv` or `-vvv` flags, for example `ato -vv build`

<Tip title="Flag Location">
  Flags are placed after the `ato` command and before the command you want to run. For example, `ato -vv build` runs the build command with the verbose flag set to the highest level, while `ato build -vv` will not work.
</Tip>

### Debugging

You can start the command-line tool in debug mode by using the `--debug` flag, for example `ato --debug build`

This runs a [`debugpy`](https://github.com/microsoft/debugpy) server on port `5678` which you can connect to with the VSCode built-in debugger.

<Frame caption="Connect debugger in VSCode">
  <img src="https://mintcdn.com/atopile/DwBxr5aqA-UPK0qU/atopile-0.14.x/guides/images/debugger-vscode.png?fit=max&auto=format&n=DwBxr5aqA-UPK0qU&q=85&s=cc943111465fc887e8feae57ba74a268" alt="connect debugger" width="942" height="434" data-path="atopile-0.14.x/guides/images/debugger-vscode.png" />
</Frame>

<Tip title="Syntax highlighting isn't working">
  If you're having trouble with syntax highlighting in the debugger, it might be because VSCode sets up a mapping between the remote and local file paths by default—remove it.
</Tip>