# Building Known

Known will run out of the box, and doesn't necessarily need to be "built" first. However, as a developer, you will sometimes need to perform certain steps in order for your changes (e.g. javascript / css) to be reflected.

## Building javascript

To simplify deployment of JS and CSS, Known makes use of Grunt. 

A Gruntfile is provided which will perform minification of js and css for you, as well as execute other useful tasks.

To get going, install grunt, and the other developer dependencies:

```npm install```

### Testing your changes

If you've made JS changes, you can check your code using ```npm run grunt -- test``` to run linting, etc

### Minify your changes

To get your javascript or css changes to be used by Known, you'll need to build minified versions of them. Do this by running the default grunt task by typing ```npm run grunt```

## Building SASS/CSS

Known now uses SCSS to define the main style sheets, and as such you will need to build a new minified stylesheet using the same ```npm run grunt``` build task.

!!! note "Watching for changes"
    If you're doing a lot of editing, you're probably going to forget to refresh your changes. Start your development session by running ```npm run grunt -- watch``` to look for changes in your javascript and SCSS files, and to automatically build your changes!

## Building languages

See [Languages](languages/index.md) for more detail, but in short ```npm run grunt -- build-lang```

!!! note "Vagrant"
    As a developer, you may find it helpful to set up a virtual machine to see your code running. A Vagrant configuration for Known can be found on [Github](https://github.com/mapkyca/known-vagrant).
