# Dev environment: recommended way to bootstrap the first admin account without email?

**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/dev-environment-recommended-way-to-bootstrap-the-first-admin-account-without-email/399187
**Category:** Development
**Tags:** development
**Created:** [March 24, 2026, 10:06pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/dev-environment-recommended-way-to-bootstrap-the-first-admin-account-without-email/399187 "2026-03-24T22:06:30Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
**Showing post:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![Ethsim2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/ethsim2/32/522255_2.png) [@Ethsim2](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Ethsim2)
#### Post date: [March 24, 2026, 10:06pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/dev-environment-recommended-way-to-bootstrap-the-first-admin-account-without-email/399187/1 "2026-03-24T22:06:30Z")

</div>

I’ve been experimenting with the discourse/discourse\_dev Docker image (on Windows 11 laptop) and noticed a small friction point in the developer workflow.

When running Discourse in development mode without outbound email configured:  
1. You can reach the signup/login page via Ember CLI (localhost:4200).  
2. You can create a user account.  
3. But login is blocked because email confirmation is required.

The workaround seems to be manually activating the account in the Rails console, for example:

```ruby
u = User.find_by(username: "admin")
u.approved = true
u.email_tokens.update_all(confirmed: true, expired: true)
u.save!

```

This works, but I wondered:

Is there a recommended developer workflow for bootstrapping the first admin account when email isn’t configured?

For example:  
• Should developers normally configure SMTP even in dev?  
• Is there a helper task for this (`rake admin:create` etc.)?  
• Would it make sense for the dev container to allow first-user login without email confirmation?

I’m asking mainly to document a smoother setup process for new developers experimenting with the dev container.

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