From clone to running a code base in under 5 minutes

Whenever I have to deal with an existing code base for the first time, I always remember the following quote:

If I can’t clone your repository and get the application running in under 5 minutes, you’re doing something wrong

I don’t remember exactly who said it, and I couldn’t find the original source on Google, but there’s truth in that statement. Don’t get me wrong, just like a code coverage of at least 90%, this 5 minutes should never be a goal. But it’s another nice metric to see how mature you or your teams are.

Like everything in our profession, it’s not an exact science. But imagine you’re getting the source code of a some application to build and run it. You might be asking yourself a lot of questions:

• Do you I to setup NPM and NuGet credentials myself? And if so, how?
• What tools do I need? A specific .NET SDK? a specific Node version? Do I need NPM or Yarn?
• How do I build the backend and the frontend? Is the order important?
• Do I need to setup users and roles to use the application? If so, how?
• How do I setup the database schema? Can it work with SQL Server LocalDB or do I need something else?
• Can the application run without master data? If not…