Dev Server

The Serve plugin starts a local HTTP server so you can preview your generated site during development.

⚡ Instant Preview

Start a local server with a single command.

🔍 Request Logging

Verbose mode logs all HTTP requests for debugging.

🛑 Graceful Shutdown

Press Ctrl+C to stop and return to the interactive menu.

Installation

revela plugin install Serve

Usage

# Start server (default: port 8080)
revela serve

# Custom port
revela serve --port 3000

# Verbose mode (log all requests)
revela serve --verbose

Then open http://localhost:8080 in your browser.

Press Ctrl+C to stop the server.

Configuration

Settings are stored in project.json:

{
  "Spectara.Revela.Plugin.Serve": {
    "Port": 8080,
    "Verbose": false
  }
}

Option	Default	Description
`Port`	`8080`	HTTP server port (1-65535)
`Verbose`	`false`	Log all requests (not just errors)

# Configure interactively
revela config serve

# Or set a specific option
revela config serve --port 3000

Output

Standard mode – only shows errors:

🌐 Serving output/ at http://localhost:8080
   Press Ctrl+C to stop

⚠ 404: /favicon.ico

Verbose mode – logs every request:

🌐 Serving output/ at http://localhost:8080
   Press Ctrl+C to stop

GET /index.html 200
GET /css/style.css 200
GET /images/photo.avif 200
⚠ 404: /favicon.ico

Typical Workflow

# 1. Generate your site
revela generate all

# 2. Preview locally
revela serve

# 3. Make changes, regenerate, refresh browser
revela generate all
revela serve

Features

Zero dependencies – uses .NET's built-in HttpListener
Correct MIME types – HTML, CSS, JS, JSON, AVIF, WebP, JPG, PNG, SVG, ICO
404 logging – missing files always shown, even in non-verbose mode
CLI overrides – --port and --verbose override project.json settings