How do YOU perform local development? Tips wanted

dotCMS Product Discussions
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1

This is how we’re currently setup:

  1. I run the docker command to clone my environment
  2. dotcli instance to the remote instance i just cloned
  3. dotcli pull to get the files locally in a better folder structure
  4. dotcli instance to switch to my local instance
  5. dotcli push -w to push changes i’m making to vtl and js files “live”
  6. Refresh the dotCMS page in my browser to view my changes
    I make changes and when I’m finished I commit them. Currently, we’re manually keeping our remote in sync with GitHub, but I’ll setup GitHub actions to do this soon.

Pros:

  • This lets me have the entire instance run locally. This is vital since it lets me use the IDE tools and snippets we’ve already created
  • “migration” seems as easy as dotcli config ing another remote instance and dotcli pushing

Cons:

  • dotcli push -w 1 seems to be the fastest “sync” i can get, and sometimes i refresh to see my changes before it’s finished pushing
  • /files directory also contains images, videos, and other media used on the site. We can use git lfs for those or just ignore them

This largely supports the direction given in this article.

Is there anything I’m making more difficult for myself? Anybody have something drastically different?

2

Hi, one thing that I do while coding is to make dotcli watch only the file or folder I’m working on, so the sync is quicker.

Maybe we can add to dotcli a watch with glob patterns?

1 Like
3

Hi!

If you already have a GitHub repo with the files, configuring the GitHub action integration can make the work easier for you.

Nolly!

4

Thanks Nolly, it’s in the plans!

I make changes and when I’m finished I commit them. Currently, we’re manually keeping our remote in sync with GitHub, but I’ll setup GitHub actions to do this soon.

I’m curious what other “hot tips” people have

5

I’ve seen other cli tools watch for changes in the files directly, instead of polling. Is that something that was explored?