Local development
Preview your site locally with live reload as you write.
The velu dev server renders your site exactly as it will appear when published,
and reloads on every change. Use it to preview your work before you publish.
Run the dev server
From your project folder:
velu dev
Velu serves the site at http://localhost:8358 and watches your files. Editing a
page or velu.json updates the browser without a manual refresh.
Change the port
Set the PORT environment variable to use a different port:
PORT=4000 velu dev
Preview a different folder
Pass a path to preview a project that isn't the current directory:
velu dev ./my-docs
What reloads automatically
- Editing any
.mdxpage reloads that page. - Editing
velu.json— colors, font, favicon, or navigation — re-renders the whole site. - Adding or removing a page file updates the route map.
Catch errors as you write
The dev server surfaces problems inline as you edit — a page that fails to compile, an unknown component, or a bad component prop shows an error in the browser instead of the rendered page. Fix it and save, and the page reloads.
When you publish, Velu runs a full build. If it fails, the deployment is marked failed and the error log appears in the dashboard. See Publishing for how deployments work.
What isn't available locally
A couple of features only run on published sites, because they're generated at build time on Velu's platform:
- Full-text search — the dev preview shows a search box, but the index is built when your site deploys. See Search.
- The Ask AI assistant answers with a canned response locally. It connects to your live content once published. See Ask AI.
Everything else — theming, navigation, components, the API playground, and the
llms.txt and Markdown export endpoints — works in local preview.