Create a virtual environment

1. Get set up with Visual Studio Code and the Python extension: instructions here.

2. Open a new terminal (Ctrl-Shift-` ) in VS Code and create a virtual environment.

   On Windows:

    py -3 -m venv env
   

   On Linux/MacOS:

    python3 -m venv env
   

3. Create a new terminal (Ctrl-Shift-` ) to get the virtual environment automatically activated, and install the application's dependencies.

   python -m pip install -r requirements.txt
   

4. Build the node front end by running:

   npm install
   npm run dev
   

5. Open a new terminal and Start the Django server:

   python manage.py migrate
   python manage.py loaddata initial_data
   python manage.py runserver