Initialize Dapr in your local environment

Now that you’ve installed the Dapr CLI, use the CLI to initialize Dapr on your local machine.

Dapr runs as a sidecar alongside your application. In self-hosted mode, this means it is a process on your local machine. By initializing Dapr, you:

• Fetch and install the Dapr sidecar binaries locally.
• Create a development environment that streamlines application development with Dapr.

Dapr initialization includes:

1. Running a Redis container instance to be used as a local state store and message broker.
2. Running a Zipkin container instance for observability.
3. Creating a default components folder with component definitions for the above.
4. Running a Dapr placement service container instance for local actor support.

Step 1: Open an elevated terminal

• Linux/MacOS
• Windows

Step 2: Run the init CLI command

Install the latest Dapr runtime binaries:

dapr init

Step 3: Verify Dapr version

dapr --version

Output:

CLI version: 1.11.0
Runtime version: 1.11.3

Step 4: Verify containers are running

As mentioned earlier, the dapr init command launches several containers that will help you get started with Dapr. Verify you have container instances with daprio/dapr, openzipkin/zipkin, and redis images running:

docker ps

Output:

Step 5: Verify components directory has been initialized

On dapr init, the CLI also creates a default components folder that contains several YAML files with definitions for a state store, Pub/sub, and Zipkin. The Dapr sidecar will read these components and use:

• The Redis container for state management and messaging.
• The Zipkin container for collecting traces.

Verify by opening your components directory:

• On Windows, under %UserProfile%\.dapr
• On Linux/MacOS, under ~/.dapr

• Linux/MacOS
• Windows

ls $HOME/.dapr

Output:

bin components config.yaml

explorer "%USERPROFILE%\.dapr\"

Result: