Installation

Prerequisites

• Docker Desktop (macOS) or Docker Engine (Linux) — must be installed and running
• mkcert — for generating locally-trusted TLS certificates (brew install mkcert on macOS, apt install mkcert on Linux)
• macOS (x86_64 or arm64) or Linux (x86_64 or arm64)

Installation

macOS (Homebrew)

brew tap whatwedo/dde
brew install dde
dde system:install

Debian / Ubuntu (APT)

curl -fsSL https://packages.dde.sh/apt/key.gpg | sudo gpg --dearmor -o /usr/share/keyrings/dde.gpg
echo "deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/dde.gpg] https://packages.dde.sh/apt stable main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/dde.list
sudo apt update
sudo apt install dde
dde system:install

Alpine

curl -fsSL https://packages.dde.sh/alpine/key.rsa.pub -o /etc/apk/keys/dde.rsa.pub
echo "https://packages.dde.sh/alpine/main" >> /etc/apk/repositories
apk add dde
dde system:install

Arch Linux

Add the repository to /etc/pacman.conf:

[dde]
Server = https://packages.dde.sh/arch/$arch
SigLevel = Required DatabaseOptional

Then import the signing key and install:

curl -fsSL https://packages.dde.sh/arch/key.gpg | sudo pacman-key --add -
sudo pacman-key --lsign-key <fingerprint>
sudo pacman -Sy dde
dde system:install

The key fingerprint is shown when running gpg --with-fingerprint <(curl -fsSL https://packages.dde.sh/arch/key.gpg).

What system:install configures

The system:install command sets up all system-level components that dde needs:

• mkcert — Installs a local root CA into your system trust store. All project certificates are signed by this CA, so browsers trust them without warnings.
• dnsmasq — Configures DNS resolution for *.test domains. On macOS this uses /etc/resolver/test; on Linux it integrates with systemd-resolved or NetworkManager.
• Traefik — Starts a Traefik v3 reverse proxy container on ports 80 and 443 that routes traffic to your project containers.
• SSH agent — Starts a shared SSH agent container so your SSH keys are available inside project containers.
• Shell completion — Installs completion scripts for your detected shell (Bash or Zsh).

DNS queries are forwarded to 9.9.9.9 and 149.112.112.112 (Quad9) by default. You can override this in the global config at ~/.dde/config.yml.

Verify your installation

After installation, verify that everything is working:

dde system:doctor

This runs 11 checks covering:

Check	What it verifies
BinaryPath	dde binary is in PATH and executable
DockerAvailable	Docker daemon is reachable
DockerCompose	docker compose subcommand is available
Mkcert	mkcert binary is installed
RootCaTrusted	mkcert root CA is installed in the system trust store
Dnsmasq	dnsmasq container is running
DnsResolution	*.test domains resolve to 127.0.0.1
Network	The dde Docker network exists
Traefik	Traefik container is running and healthy
SshAgent	SSH agent container is running
Mailpit	Mailpit container is running

All checks should pass. If any fail, re-run dde system:install or consult the error message for guidance.