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title: Setting Up a Development Environment
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### Preliminary Steps

Use the following checklist to ensure that you are ready to develop your custom plugins.

- **Get IntelliJ IDEA CE source code** on your local computer. Getting IntelliJ IDEA CE source code is not a requirement for plugin development, but having it makes debugging your plugins much easier. For detailed instructions refer to the _Getting IntelliJ IDEA Community Edition Source Code_ section of [Check Out And Build Community Edition](https://github.com/JetBrains/intellij-community/blob/master/README.md). Note that building IntelliJ IDEA CE from source code is not required for plugin development.
- **Plugin DevKit** plugin must be [enabled in IntelliJ IDEA](https://www.jetbrains.com/help/idea/managing-plugins.html)
- **IntelliJ Platform SDK** must be configured for your IDEA project. For more information, see below.
  
### Configuring IntelliJ Platform SDK
  
To set up your plugin development environment:

*  Create a new *IntelliJ Platform SDK* under **File \| Project Structure**:

   ![Create IntelliJ Platform SDK](img/create_intellij_idea_sdk.png)
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*  Specify the installation folder of *IntelliJ IDEA Community Edition* as the home directory.
> **warning** You may use IntelliJ IDEA Ultimate as an alternative, but debugging the core code will only work with the *Community Edition*.

   ![Set Home Directory](img/set_home_directory.png)
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*  Select the **IDEA jdk** as the default Java SDK. See the _IntelliJ Build Configuration_ section of [Check Out And Build Community Edition](https://github.com/JetBrains/intellij-community/blob/master/README.md) for instructions about creating the **IDEA jdk**.

   ![Set IDEA JDK](img/set_java_sdk.png)
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*  In the Sourcepath tab of the SDK settings, click the *Add* button:

   ![Add Sourcepath](img/add_sourcepath.png)
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*  Specify the source code directory for the *IntelliJ IDEA Community Edition*:

   ![Specify Source Paths](img/community_sources_directory.png)
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*  Specify the **Sandbox Home** directory.  
   The *Sandbox Home* directory stores the settings of the IDE development instance launched from a Plugin Project's **Run** configration.
   Shown below is the default *Sandbox Home* directory for a user on Mac OS X. Any directory can be chosen as the *Sandbox Home* location. 
   Use the ellipsis button (shown below) to define a custom location.  
   
   See the [IDE Development Instances](/basics/ide_development_instance.md) page for more information about default *Sandbox Home* directory
   locations and contents.  
  
   ![Specify Sandbox Path](img/plugins-sandbox.png)