Moodle Playground¶

Moodle Playground

Moodle running entirely in your browser, via WebAssembly. No server, no installation, no data leaves your machine.

What is this?¶

Moodle Playground lets you run a full Moodle LMS instance in your browser for learning, testing, and prototyping course experiences. Perfect for:

Teachers evaluating new activities without touching a production server
Plugin developers testing changes before pushing to a live site
Trainers giving workshops where every attendee gets a disposable Moodle
Researchers reproducing a specific Moodle version in an isolated environment

The runtime is fully ephemeral: everything lives in memory and resets when you close the tab.

Default credentials

Username admin, password password. Override them via a blueprint if needed.

How it works¶

The project is a layered architecture with clear boundaries:

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│  Shell UI  (index.html · src/shell/main.js)             │
│     toolbar · URL bar · iframe host · runtime logs      │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│  Runtime host  (remote.html · src/remote/main.js)       │
│     registers the service worker                        │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│  Request routing  (sw.js · php-worker.js)               │
│     intercepts HTTP requests, routes to PHP runtime     │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│  PHP / Moodle runtime  (src/runtime/*)                  │
│     boots Moodle via @php-wasm/web                      │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│  Generated assets  (assets/moodle/)                     │
│     prebuilt ZIP bundle (extracted into MEMFS at boot)  │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

See the Architecture overview for the full picture.

Quick start¶

Use it right nowRun it locallyQuick blueprint demo

Nothing to install — just open the hosted instance:

https://moodle-playground.com

# Clone
git clone https://github.com/ateeducacion/moodle-playground.git
cd moodle-playground

# Install and build
npm install
make prepare
make bundle

# Start the dev server
make serve

Then open http://localhost:8080.

Provision a site with a custom name and a demo course in one go:

https://moodle-playground.com/?blueprint-url=/assets/blueprints/examples/demo-course.blueprint.json

See the Blueprint gallery for more.

Features¶

PHP 8.1 → 8.5

Version depends on the Moodle branch; default 8.3.
Moodle 4.4 / 5.0

Multiple upstream branches built at the same time.
SQLite via PDO

Experimental driver patch — see MDL-88218.
Fast boot

Pre-built install snapshot boots in ~3 s vs ~8 s for a full install.
Blueprints

Step-based JSON to provision users, courses, enrolments, modules, and more.
Works on GitHub Pages

Subpath-aware; deployable as a static site.

Where to go next¶

Getting started

Local setup, build commands, and a first blueprint.
Blueprint reference

The complete JSON schema for blueprint files.
Blueprint gallery

Ready-to-use blueprint examples for courses, users, plugins.
Architecture

How the shell, service worker and PHP-WASM runtime fit together.
Troubleshooting

Common failure modes and how to fix them.
Known issues

Upstream bugs and limitations we are tracking.

CI/CD and GitHub Actions¶

The project includes a reusable GitHub Action for live PR previews:

action-moodle-playground-pr-preview — Deploys a temporary Moodle Playground instance for each pull request so reviewers can test changes in the browser before merging.

The main CI/CD pipeline (.github/workflows/ci.yml) handles linting, unit tests, Playwright E2E (Chromium + Firefox), and deployment to GitHub Pages on push to main.

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