# Running Pilcrow locally

## Running a freestanding server

Pilcrow can be run "as if" it were a real deployment using Cargo:

```bash
cargo run
```

or

```bash
cargo run --release
```

Cargo will build the server, and the UI if necessary, and package them together into a single binary. Options can be passed to the server using `cargo run -- […options…]`.

## Running an editable client build

It can be useful to run the client as a separate application during development. SvelteKit and Vite provide services such as live reloading that significantly streamline client development. To do this, start a local server (or see below), then separately start the client with Vite:

```bash
npx vite dev
```

Vite will proxy API requests through to the running Pilcrow server, but provide its own view of the UI.

Using the `tools/run` script will run both the Pilcrow server and a development client build.

The client can also be run against other servers by setting the `API_SERVER` environment variable to the _base_ URL of the server:

```bash
API_SERVER=https://hi.grimoire.ca/ npx vite run
```