Q: How to open a sharded MongoDB (without replica set) environment on my dev machine? I have only found this tutorial here which seems to be most recent, other tutorials it seems are outdated and don't work anymore.
I want to create a sharded, non-replicated cluster on my dev machine and I couldn't find how to do it in Mongo 3.4

A: You can have one member replica set as a minimum. You will also need config server to keep track of shards. 
Reference: https://docs.mongodb.com/manual/core/sharded-cluster-components/#development-configuration

For testing and development, you can deploy a sharded cluster with a
  minimum number of components. These non-production clusters have the
  following components:
A replica set config server with one member. At least one shard as a
  single-member replica set. One mongos instance.

WARNING:
Use the test cluster architecture for testing and development only.

A: One node replica sets are fine, but you don't need even that. Normal nodes are fine. Check here simple steps to create sharded cluster.
