I haven't been able to find an answer for this, so I'm hoping asking this here would be appropriate.

I'd like to try my hand at some development of Kbin but I don't exactly know how to test a web application of this scale. Obviously, the roadblock for me is understanding how to develop and test features without having a dedicated domain name -- as my understanding is that federated services heavily rely on the use of a domain name. This also would imply that the server has to be exposed to the internet, much like development of a email client.

But obviously I must be missing something here. Is there any recommended guidelines for setting up a development environment for Kbin? Ideally, a containerized approach via Docker or Podman would be ideal as I wouldn't want to muck with my host system. Additionally, is it possible to use hostnames in order to simulate and test federation capabilities? Lastly, are there any thorough reads (blogs or forum posts) that go in depth with developing federated web applications and how the development process differs from standard webdev?