Connect to services

Now that you have a local copy of your application code, you can make changes to the project without pushing to Platform.sh each time to test them. Instead you can locally build your application using the CLI, even when its functionality depends on a number of services.

Note:

If your application does not contain any services, you do not need to open a tunnel and can proceed to the next step.

Open an SSH tunnel to connect to your services

Open local SSH tunnels to your environment’s services.
```
platform tunnel:open
```
Export environment variables

Platform.sh utilizes environment variables called Relationships within the application container. These store the credentials needed to connect to individual services. In order to connect with them remotely using the SSH tunnel you will need to mimic the same environment variables locally.
```
export PLATFORM_RELATIONSHIPS="$(platform tunnel:info --encode)"
```
In order to use these credentials to connect to your services, it may also be necessary to install the clients for those services are locally.

Additionally, if your application also needs access to the PORT environment variable, you can mock the variable used in a Platform.sh environment with
```
export PORT=8888
```
If you are using a Config Reader library with the application, it will also be necessary to mock two additional variables
```
export PLATFORM_APPLICATION_NAME=<.platform.app.yaml name, i.e. app>
export PLATFORM_BRANCH=<branch being built, i.e. dev>
```
Verify

You can visualize the open tunnels for your application with the command
```
platform tunnel:list
```
The tunnel will close itself after a timeout period of inactivity, but you can also do so with the command
```
platform tunnel:close
```

Now that you have created an SSH tunnel to your services, build your application locally.