Local development

Run and test your Shell app on your computer against real or sample data before publishing.

The starter kit runs your app on your computer inside a stand-in for the Shell, so you can build and test pages before publishing.

Run it

npm run dev

Open http://localhost:4175. The page reloads as you edit.

Command	Data it uses
`npm run dev`	Your workspace's real data, as you. Run `gf login` and `gf workspaces use <workspace-id>` first. Without a CLI session, it falls back to sample data
`npm run dev:fixtures`	Sample data only, even when you're signed in

When the app calls Groundfloor locally, the kit's development server adds a fresh token from your gf login session to each request. The token never reaches the browser, and none of this goes into a release.

So locally you act as yourself, a team member, not as one of your app's users. Pages that work for you can still return 403 for an app user whose role hasn't been granted access to a collection. Test with a real user on your Shell site before you rely on it. See Data.

Feature flags locally

npm run dev reads the dev environment's flags. To read another environment, set VITE_GF_ENVIRONMENT_ID=<environment-id> in .env.local. With dev:fixtures, flags return the fallbacks you pass to useFlag.

Try the release build

npm run preview:release

Builds release.zip exactly as it will be published, and serves it at http://localhost:4175. Use it to check a build before running gf apps publish.

Develop in the browser

Develop online, on your app's page in the Client Portal, opens the starter kit in a development environment in your browser, already signed in. Run the same commands there, and leave release.zip in the project's root folder when you publish.

Next steps

Build your first Shell app — publish when it works.
Troubleshooting