Since Discourse runs in Docker, why not develop there? If you have Docker installed, you should be able to run Discourse directly from your source directory using a Discourse development container.
## Step-by-step
It should be as easy as (from your source root):
```sh
./bin/docker/boot_dev --init
# wait while:
# - dependencies are installed,
# - the database is migrated, and
# - an admin user is created (you'll need to interact with this)
##### Where is the container image/Dockerfile defined?
The Dockerfile comes from [discourse/discourse_docker on GitHub](https://github.com/discourse/discourse_docker), in particular [image/discourse_dev](https://github.com/discourse/discourse_docker/tree/master/image/discourse_dev).