+++
title = "MixLab"
slug = "index"
order = 1
summary = "Run PHP, Node, Python, Ruby, Go and Java locally on any version, with real domains and HTTPS, without Docker."
+++

# MixLab

> **This handbook covers MixLab through the `mix` command line.** If you would rather work in a
> graphical interface, you already have one: every installer places the MixLab window beside the
> command line. Both drive the same MixEngine underneath, so everything in this handbook still
> applies.

MixLab is a local web development environment. It runs several versions of PHP, Node.js, Python,
Ruby, Go and Java side by side and lets a directory choose which one it uses; it runs the web
server, databases and caches your projects need; and it gives every site a real name like
`https://blog.test` with a certificate your browser trusts. There is no Docker, no virtual machine
and no configuration file to write by hand. MixLab writes the configuration itself, and nothing it
runs stays behind as a root process.

It is one daemon and one command. `mixengined` owns everything MixEngine knows and supervises
everything it runs; `mix` is what you type. A few operations need an administrator: a line in the
hosts file, a certificate in the system store, permission to listen on port 80. MixLab asks for them
once, together, and a helper does them and exits as soon as it is done.

## Start here

- [Installing MixLab](./install.md): the file for your system, and what it does and does not
  touch.
- [Your first site](./getting-started.md): from a fresh install to a green padlock, in about five
  minutes.

## The handbook

- [Projects and sites](./projects-and-sites.md): the two nouns, and how a checkout carries its own
  setup.
- [PHP, Node, Python, Ruby, Go and Java versions](./runtimes.md): several at once, chosen per
  directory.
- [Servers, databases and caches](./services.md): what your project runs against.
- [Names and the padlock](./domains-and-https.md): why `blog.test` resolves, and what signed it.
- [Showing a site to your phone](./sharing.md): one site on the local network, and back off again.
- [Blueprints](./blueprints.md): write down what a project is made of, and set it up again
  elsewhere.
- [Extensions](./extensions.md): phpMyAdmin, Mailpit and the rest, from a signed registry.
- [What MixLab asks permission for](./permissions.md): every prompt, and what each one changes.
- [Keeping MixLab current](./updating.md): updates are opt-in, signed, and rehearsed.
- [Removing MixLab](./uninstalling.md): and how to check nothing was left behind.
- [When something is wrong](./troubleshooting.md): `mix doctor` first.
- [Command reference](./cli.md): every command and flag, generated from the program itself.

## For programs

- [Reading this as a program](./for-agents.md): every page as plain Markdown, a manifest, and the
  same bytes offline in `mix docs`.

Every page here is written in English and in Vietnamese, and every page is also published as plain
Markdown at a predictable address. The same pages are compiled into the `mix` binary itself, so
`mix docs` answers on a machine with no network and no running daemon.

MixLab runs on Windows, macOS and Linux, and every page here applies to all three. Where a system
genuinely differs, the page says which one it is talking about.