Moodle Playground

Live demo · Documentation · Blueprints

Run a full Moodle site in the browser — no server required.

Moodle Playground runs Moodle™ entirely in the browser using WebAssembly, powered by WordPress Playground's @php-wasm/web runtime. Every page load boots a fresh Moodle instance with a pre-built SQLite snapshot — nothing is stored on disk and nothing leaves your browser.

Getting Started

Try it online

Open the live demo — no install needed.

Run it locally

git clone https://github.com/ateeducacion/moodle-playground.git
cd moodle-playground
make up

Then open http://localhost:8080.

Prerequisites

• Node.js 18+
• npm
• Python 3 for Moodle patch/build helpers and docs
• PHP 8.3 with pdo_sqlite (for make up-local)
• Git

How It Works

index.html          Shell UI (toolbar, address bar, log panel)
  └─ remote.html    Runtime host — registers the Service Worker
       ├─ sw.js     Intercepts requests → routes to PHP worker
       └─ php-worker.js
            └─ @php-wasm/web (WebAssembly, PHP 8.3)
                 ├─ Moodle core in writable MEMFS  (extracted from ZIP bundle)
                 └─ In-memory state                (SQLite + moodledata in MEMFS)

1. The shell boots a scoped runtime host inside an iframe.
2. The Service Worker intercepts all requests under /playground/<scope>/<runtime>/….
3. The PHP worker extracts the Moodle ZIP bundle into writable MEMFS and loads a pre-built install snapshot.
4. Moodle runs against an in-memory SQLite database — fully ephemeral, no persistence.
5. If the PHP runtime crashes (WASM OOM / file descriptor exhaustion), the worker snapshots the DB and user files, boots a fresh runtime, and restores state automatically.

Default credentials: username admin, password password.

No persistence by design

All state lives in memory (Emscripten MEMFS). Closing the tab destroys everything. This is intentional — the playground is meant for exploration, demos, and testing, not for storing data.

Blueprints

Blueprints are step-based JSON files that configure and provision a playground instance at boot. Inspired by WordPress Playground Blueprints, they use Moodle-native naming and semantics.

{
  "landingPage": "/course/view.php?id=2",
  "steps": [
    { "step": "installMoodle", "options": { "siteName": "My Moodle" } },
    { "step": "login", "username": "admin" },
    { "step": "installMoodlePlugin", "url": "https://github.com/moodlehq/moodle-block_participants/archive/refs/heads/master.zip" },
    { "step": "createCourse", "fullname": "Physics 101", "shortname": "PHYS101" },
    { "step": "addModule", "module": "label", "course": "PHYS101", "name": "Welcome", "intro": "<p>Hello World!</p>" }
  ]
}

A default blueprint is bundled at assets/blueprints/default.blueprint.json. Override it by:

• Passing ?blueprint=<inline-json-or-base64> or ?blueprint-url=<url> in the URL
• Importing a .json file from the shell toolbar

Blueprints can provision:

• Site title, locale, timezone, and admin credentials (installMoodle)
• User sessions (login)
• Additional users (createUser, createUsers)
• Course categories (createCategory, createCategories)
• Courses and sections (createCourse, createCourses, createSection)
• Enrolments (enrolUser, enrolUsers)
• Course modules (addModule — label, assign, folder, etc.)
• Plugins and themes from ZIP URLs (installMoodlePlugin, installTheme)
• Moodle config values (setConfig, setConfigs)
• Filesystem operations (writeFile, mkdir, unzip, etc.)
• Arbitrary PHP code (runPhpCode, runPhpScript)

Use constants for {{PLACEHOLDER}} substitution and resources for named file references.

See the Blueprint reference for the full format, all step types, and examples. A sample blueprint is at blueprint-sample.json.

Schema: assets/blueprints/blueprint-schema.json.

See the development docs and AGENTS.md for the full command reference.

Sibling Docker runtime: alpine-moodle

Moodle Playground focuses on browser-based, ephemeral Moodle instances for demos, QA, and shareable test scenarios.

For Docker-based development, CI, plugin development, and persistent integration testing, the sibling project alpine-moodle can apply a compatible subset of Moodle Playground blueprint.json files during container startup.

This means a plugin or course demo can keep a single declarative blueprint.json and run it either:

• in Moodle Playground for fast browser validation and sharing, or
• in alpine-moodle for a real Docker-based Moodle environment.

See docs/blueprints/runtime.md for compatibility notes and a portable, Docker-compatible example.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome. See the development docs to get started.

License

See LICENSE.

Trademark

"Moodle™" and the Moodle logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Moodle Pty Ltd and its associated entities, used here for identification and descriptive purposes only.

Moodle Playground is an independent, community-maintained open-source project built by Área de Tecnología Educativa (ATE). It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, sponsored by, or approved by Moodle Pty Ltd or Moodle HQ. It runs the open-source Moodle™ software in the browser for demonstration, testing, and educational purposes.

See Moodle's trademark guidelines for details.