The solutions is to do a database dump with only the database structure.
Using mysql: mysqldump StrapiDB -d -u root -p > structureOnly.sql
Then
npm install
npm run build
Then start the instance of this project.
When you get to it through the browser Strapi creates the base data that it needs.
I didn’t not find this clearly laid out in the documentation but now I know what to do and if someone else has the same question this is where to find the answer I guess…