---
title: "Selecting the Drupal setup strategy"
date: "2024-03-04T07:53:42+00:00"
summary: "Learn how to enable Drupal site setup in Code Studio for efficient database management and testing. Discover two strategies for installing or syncing your Drupal database, enhancing your development workflow."
image:
type: "page"
url: "/acquia-cloud-platform/add-ons/code-studio/selecting-drupal-setup-strategy"
id: "e68e480f-6432-4362-a223-00da27bb5426"
---

Enabling a Drupal site setup
----------------------------

You can enable a Drupal site setup in the Code Studio pipeline. If you enable it, Code Studio runs `drush site:install` after `composer install`, and you can:

*   Confirm successful completion of database updates and clean import of database configuration into a new database or an existing database copied from Cloud Platform
*   Run PHPUnit tests on a working site

To enable a Drupal site setup:

1.  Add the `ACQUIA_TASKS_SETUP_DRUPAL` environment variable in Code Studio.

    For information about how to add environment variables in Code Studio, see [Adding environment variables](/acquia-cloud-platform/add-ons/code-studio/customizing-code-studio/default-code-studio-pipeline/environment-variables#section-adding-environment-variables).

2.  Set the value of the environment variable to `true`.

After enabling the site setup, you can:

*   [Use the `install` strategy](/acquia-cloud-platform/add-ons/code-studio/using-install-strategy "Using the install strategy") to install a new Drupal database based on a selected profile
*   [Use the `sync` strategy](/acquia-cloud-platform/add-ons/code-studio/using-sync-strategy "Using the sync strategy") to sync an existing database from Cloud Platform

For information about how the setup strategy affects your Code Studio pipeline, see [AutoDevOps pipeline steps](https://acquia.widen.net/s/5dfdhscdpl/code-studio_autodevops).