In a lot of projects, this is usually done via README. It tells you what running dependencies to install and how to run certain commands.
This can get harder to maintain as things change, the project grows, and complexity increases.
I see two parts to automate here: actually setting up the environment, and running the application or orchestrating multiple apps.
How do you address this?
Nix! And then you can also auto-create your CI/CD environment from Nix. They share a common source, which eliminates whole classes of problems. It’s supsr fast and very awesome when it works, but it has a learning curve. Worth the effort though.