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Working in dev environment

Description

When you are inside your code editor, you are working on a development environment. We designed Meta API to both suits developers needs of experimenting and testing new ways to automate APIs but also teams who need to have a production and a stable environment.

Before sending your Spell on production, here is what you can do on your dev environment.

Your own dev server

Each time you're working on a Spell, we start a dev server only for your team.

It's a NodeJS server instance, designed by the Meta API team, to handle your code updates and changes in seconds.

When you hit Save on your Spell, we ensure that this dev server is up and ready to execute your code. That's why the first save takes a bit more time than the next saves.

If you need to restart this server, you can go on your Spell detailed page, click Spell settings and select Restart dev server at the bottom of this popup.

Restart dev server

After 20 minutes of inactivity (no save or run), your dev server is automatically shut down. If you use your Spell development URL, be sure to hit the Save button regularly.

Your Spell dev URL

You can access your Spell URL for development inside the Versions popup

Spell dev URL

The URL is the same as your production URL: it contains a dev=true query parameter inside the URL.

This URL will directly run the code inside your code editor.

If your dev server is not up, you'll see this error message:

Your development environment is not running: save a Spell to restart it and test your Spell again.

Go to your Spell and hit the Save button: the dev server will automatically start and load your code.

Requests and timeout

Every time you hit Run and send a dev requests, these requests doesn't count on your compute time. That's mean you can develop as much as you want for free.

Your dev server is also not affected by timeout, but you'll see a warning if the Spell you have executed is outrun the configured timeout.
You can change your Spell's timeout by following this guide.