alis preview¶
Say where a service's frontend answers, so your coding agent can open it in the browser its own tools drive and you can open it yourself. Nothing is launched.
Synopsis¶
Also available as alis service preview.
Description¶
Start the service first with alis run. The address is, in order: --url, --port, ALIS_APP_URL, the port in the service's .claude/launch.json, the Makefile's APP_URL, the server.port of a Vite app at the service root (else 5173), else localhost:8080. Without an argument the service is the nearest folder above the current one with a launch.json or a Makefile run target, else with a package.json dev script.
On a laptop the agent opens the result's url with its own browser tools (Claude in Chrome, the Codex browser, a Playwright MCP), which drive your own browser on the machine; the next field says so. On a workstation the result carries the port's public address (workstation_url), behind the platform sign-in: you open it in your own browser, where every page has the Alis toolbar, and the agent drives that tab through the workstation's page_* tools, or its own Playwright browser at url with the sign-in you shared from the toolbar.
Flags¶
| Flag | Type | Default | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
--port <n> |
int | The frontend answers at http://localhost:<port>. |
|
--url <address> |
string | The frontend answers at exactly this address (a path such as /checkout included). |
Plus the global flags. --split, --ssh and --dry-run, which belonged to the retired terminal-browser launch, are still accepted and do nothing; a note on stderr says so.
Examples¶
alis preview
alis preview --port 5173
alis preview --url http://localhost:5173/checkout
alis preview --json
Result¶
--json prints dir, url, port, source (url, port, env, launch.json, makefile, vite or default), guessed when nothing in the folder looks like a frontend, and next for the agent. On a workstation it adds workstation_url, ssh_alias, shell_url and hint.
Never use preview for logs or operation status; those come from alis logs and alis operations.