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adamsaghy merged 3 commits into from
Dec 19, 2025
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FINERACT-792: Improve developer environment setup documentation #5248

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FINERACT-792: Improve developer environment setup and IntelliJ IDEA g…
Monica-CodingWorld Dec 18, 2025
3925676
docs: update Java version requirement to Java 21
Monica-CodingWorld Dec 18, 2025
5cd46c8
docs: updated Java version requirement to Java 21
Monica-CodingWorld Dec 18, 2025
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32 changes: 32 additions & 0 deletions CONTRIBUTING.md
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Expand Up @@ -95,6 +95,15 @@ This is useful for repeated test runs (say, for timing) when gradle would otherw

See the next section for testing in Eclipse and [here](https://fineract-academy.com) for testing in IntelliJ.

## Recommended IDEs

Apache Fineract can be developed using multiple IDEs. The most commonly used and supported IDEs are:

- **Eclipse IDE** – Fully supported and commonly used within the community.
- **IntelliJ IDEA (Community or Ultimate)** – Recommended for most developers due to excellent Gradle support and debugging experience.

The sections below provide setup guidance for each IDE.

### How to run and debug in Eclipse IDE

It is possible to run Fineract in Eclipse IDE and also to debug Fineract using Eclipse's debugging facilities.
Expand All @@ -111,6 +120,29 @@ You can also use Eclipse JUnit support to run tests in Eclipse (Run As->JUnit Te

Finally, modifying source code in Eclipse automatically triggers hot code replace to a running instance, allowing you to immediately test your changes

## How to run and debug in IntelliJ IDEA

IntelliJ IDEA provides strong Gradle integration and is recommended for most new contributors.

### Prerequisites
- IntelliJ IDEA (Community Edition is sufficient)
- Java 21 (as required by Fineract)
- Gradle (wrapper included in the repository)

### Steps

1. Open IntelliJ IDEA and select **Open**
2. Choose the root `fineract` directory
3. When prompted, import the project as a **Gradle project**
4. Use the Gradle wrapper (`gradlew`) when asked
5. Ensure the correct JDK is selected (**Java 21**)
6. After import completes, run:
- `org.apache.fineract.ServerApplication` as a **Java Application**

### Notes
- IntelliJ may take several minutes to index the project on first open
- If you encounter build issues, try running `./gradlew clean build` from the terminal

How to download Gradle wrapper
---
The file gradle/wrapper/gradle-wrapper.jar binary is checked into this projects Git source repository,
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