What should I use to make local setup easier?

It depends on what you’re setting up locally, but here are the most common tools that make local development much easier:

General local setup

• Docker / Docker Compose — best if you want consistent environments across machines.
• Dev Containers — great if you use VS Code or similar and want the whole environment reproducible.
• asdf or nvm / pyenv / rbenv — good for managing language versions.

For frontend projects

• Vite — fast local dev server and simple setup for React, Vue, Svelte, etc.
• pnpm — faster, more disk-efficient package manager than npm in many cases.
• Concurrently — if you need to run multiple local processes at once.

For backend projects

• Docker Compose — especially useful if you need databases, Redis, queues, etc.
• dotenv / env files — to manage local config cleanly.
• Makefile or justfile — convenient shortcuts for common commands.

For monorepos

• Turborepo or Nx — helps manage builds, caching, and running apps/packages locally.

If you want the easiest overall setup

A common “low-friction” stack is:

• Docker Compose
• Dev Container
• .env files
• Makefile/justfile
• pnpm or the relevant language package manager

If you tell me what kind of project you’re setting up — frontend, backend, Python, Node, full-stack, etc. — I can recommend the best specific tools.