Local Dev

Local Development Agent

Helps set up, run, and troubleshoot the local development environment.

dev-ctl — Consolidated Multi-Project Manager

All projects on this machine are managed by a single command: dev-ctl.

~/dev-tools/
  dev-ctl                 ← single control plane for all projects

~/Documents/developer/
  <project>/.dev-env      ← each project declares its services here

dev-ctl auto-discovers every */.dev-env file under ~/Documents/developer/ — no registration step needed. Shared services (e.g. MariaDB) are started once and deduplicated across projects.

Commands

dev-ctl status                   # health table — all projects at once
dev-ctl start                    # start all projects
dev-ctl start <project-id>       # start one project (e.g. hnw, dscmod, dsc)
dev-ctl stop  <project-id>       # stop non-shared services for a project
dev-ctl monitor                  # health check + macOS notification (used by cron)
dev-ctl install-monitor          # cron: every 5 min health check + alert
dev-ctl uninstall-monitor        # remove cron job
dev-ctl logs  [project|svc]      # tail service logs

Monitor / alerting

dev-ctl install-monitor
# Registers: */5 * * * * dev-ctl monitor   in crontab
# Alert:     macOS notification (sound: Basso) when any service goes down or recovers
# Log:       /tmp/dev-ctl/monitor.log

Adding a new project

1. Create <project-root>/.dev-env (copy the template from rl-project-template/scripts/dev-env.template)
2. Set DEV_PROJECT_ID, DEV_PROJECT_LABEL, DEV_SERVICES
3. For each service FOO, define:
   • DEV_SVC_FOO_LABEL — display name
   • DEV_SVC_FOO_CHECK — bash snippet returning 0 if up
   • DEV_SVC_FOO_START — bash snippet to start the service
   • DEV_SVC_FOO_STOP — bash snippet to stop (optional)
   • DEV_SVC_FOO_SHARED — "true" if shared across projects (e.g. MariaDB)
   • DEV_SVC_FOO_SETUP — per-project init after service is up (e.g. CREATE DATABASE)
   • DEV_SVC_FOO_TIMEOUT — seconds to wait for start (default 30)
4. Run dev-ctl status — the project appears immediately

Thin project-level wrappers (optional)

Projects may keep convenience scripts in scripts/ that delegate to dev-ctl:

# scripts/dev-start.sh
exec "$HOME/dev-tools/dev-ctl" start <project-id>

Standard Port Conventions

Check src/<Project>.Api/Properties/launchSettings.json for the actual API port. The CORS policy in appsettings.Development.json must include the Vite port.

Running Native (without podman-compose)

# API
cd src/<Project>.Api
dotnet run        # or: dotnet watch run (file-change reload)

# Frontend
cd src/<Project>.WebClient
npm run dev       # Vite proxies /api/* to the API port

# MariaDB (macOS Homebrew)
brew services start mariadb

Running With podman-compose

podman-compose up --build   # build and start all services
podman-compose up           # start without rebuild
podman-compose down         # stop, keep volumes
podman-compose down -v      # stop and wipe volumes (clean slate)
podman-compose logs -f api  # tail API logs

podman-compose.yml lives in containerization/. Mirrors OpenShift layout: API on 8080, MariaDB on 3306, healthchecks on all services.

Environment Configuration

cp src/<Project>.Api/appsettings.Development.json.example \
   src/<Project>.Api/appsettings.Development.json

.Development.json is in .gitignore — never commit it.

{
  "ConnectionStrings": {
    "DefaultConnection": "Server=localhost;Port=3306;Database=<project>_dev;User=<user>;Password=<pass>;"
  },
  "Authentication": { "BypassAuth": true },
  "Admin": { "Token": "local-admin-token" }
}

MariaDB Socket Auth (macOS Homebrew)

Homebrew MariaDB defaults to socket auth for root. Create a password-auth dev user:

-- Run as root: mariadb --skip-ssl
CREATE DATABASE <project>_dev CHARACTER SET utf8mb4 COLLATE utf8mb4_unicode_ci;
CREATE USER '<user>'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY '<password>';
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON <project>_dev.* TO '<user>'@'localhost';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

Use Server=localhost;Port=3306; (TCP) in the connection string with this user.

EF Core Migrations

# Add migration
dotnet ef migrations add <MigrationName> \
  --project src/<Project>.Api --startup-project src/<Project>.Api

# Apply
dotnet ef database update \
  --project src/<Project>.Api --startup-project src/<Project>.Api

# List status
dotnet ef migrations list --project src/<Project>.Api

# Rollback
dotnet ef database update <PreviousMigrationName> --project src/<Project>.Api

# Remove last un-applied migration file
dotnet ef migrations remove --project src/<Project>.Api

# Wipe schema (dangerous)
dotnet ef database update 0 --project src/<Project>.Api

Naming Conventions

Startup Auto-Migrate

// Program.cs — always Migrate(), never EnsureCreated()
using (var scope = app.Services.CreateScope())
{
    var db = scope.ServiceProvider.GetRequiredService<ApplicationDbContext>();
    db.Database.Migrate();
}

Running Tests

dotnet test                            # all tests
dotnet test tests/<Project>.Tests/    # specific project
dotnet test --verbosity normal         # with output
cd src/<Project>.WebClient && npm test # Vitest frontend tests

Common Issues

LOCAL_DEV_KNOWLEDGE

Append new local dev discoveries here. Format: YYYY-MM-DD: <discovery>

• 2026-02-27: [HelloNetworkWorld] macOS Homebrew MariaDB uses socket auth for root. Created dedicated hnw_dev DB with password-auth user. Connection string: Server=localhost;Port=3306;Database=hnw_dev;User=hnw_user;Password=...;
• 2026-02-27: [HelloNetworkWorld] API on port 5200, Vite on 5175 (non-default). After EF Core InitialCreate migration, full CRUD verified via curl. Quartz.NET background scheduler starts on API boot.
• 2026-04-13: dev-ctl consolidated multi-project dev manager introduced. All projects declare a .dev-env; shared services (MariaDB) start once and run per-project DB setup. crontab monitors every 5 min with macOS notifications. Source: ~/dev-tools/dev-ctl. macOS launchd TCC blocks scripts in ~/Documents — crontab used instead.