Local Development

TL;DR – keep config.toml in sync with your environment, use just dev for paired watchers, and rely on the CLI for quick smoke tests of authentication and streaming.

Environment configuration

All binaries load configuration through rustygpt-shared::config::server::Config. The loader merges:

1. Built-in defaults selected by the active profile (Dev/Test/Prod)
2. Optional config.toml / config.yaml / config.json
3. Environment variables such as RUSTYGPT__SERVER__PORT=9000
4. CLI overrides (e.g. cargo run -p rustygpt-server -- serve --port 9000)

Keep secrets out of the repo—override them with environment variables or a private config.toml. See Configuration for the full key list.

Watcher workflows

The Justfile orchestrates the common flows:

# Run server + web watchers together (uses rustygpt-tools/confuse)
just dev

# Backend only hot-reload
just watch-server

# Run fmt, check, and clippy
just check

just dev spawns two subprocesses:

• rustygpt-server via cargo watch -x 'run -- serve --port 8080'
• rustygpt-web via trunk watch

Logs stream to stdout so you can confirm when migrations finish (db_bootstrap_* metrics) and when the SSE hub accepts connections.

CLI smoke tests

The CLI binary lives at rustygpt-cli. Useful commands while iterating:

# Launch the server directly from the CLI crate
cargo run -p rustygpt-cli -- serve --port 8080

# Generate the OpenAPI spec
cargo run -p rustygpt-cli -- spec openapi.yaml

# Generate config skeletons
cargo run -p rustygpt-cli -- config --format toml

# Manage sessions
cargo run -p rustygpt-cli -- login
cargo run -p rustygpt-cli -- me
cargo run -p rustygpt-cli -- logout

CLI commands reuse the same cookie jar as the web client. Cookies are stored under ~/.config/rustygpt/session.cookies by default (see [cli] in the configuration schema).

Debugging tips

• Enable verbose tracing: RUST_LOG=rustygpt_server=debug,tower_http=info just run-server
• Inspect SSE payloads: curl -N http://127.0.0.1:8080/api/stream/conversations/<conversation-id> (requires an authenticated session and features.sse_v1 = true)
• Verify configuration resolution: cargo run -p rustygpt-cli -- config --format json and inspect the generated file
• Regenerate database bindings or seed data by restarting the server; bootstrap scripts rerun automatically when the process starts
• Use docker compose logs postgres if migrations fail during bootstrap

For operational playbooks (e.g. Docker deployment or rotating secrets) see the How-to section.