Development Environment

This section outlines the steps to set up the development environment for Kiln. It is intended for contributors or those looking to modify the core binary and default layouts.

Prerequisites & Setup

Kiln uses Nix to manage development dependencies and npm for code formatting and styling tools.

# 1. Enter the Nix shell to install Go, Air, and other system deps
nix develop

# 2. Install Node packages (primarily for Prettier plugins)
npm install

Hot Reloading (Air)

We use Air for live reloading during Go development. This will watch your .go files and automatically rebuild/restart the binary when changes are detected.

# Start the auto-reloading dev environment
air

Styling & Layouts (Tailwind)

If you are modifying the built-in layouts (e.g., default or simple), you need to run the Tailwind CLI to regenerate the CSS.

Note

Pay attention to the output flag (-o). You must point it to the CSS file corresponding to the specific layout you are working on.

# Watch mode for Tailwind
# Replace 'test_style.css' with the actual CSS file for your layout
tailwindcss -i ./assets/input.css -o ./assets/test_style.css --watch

Configuration Files

Key configuration files found in the repository root:

.prettierrc: Configuration for Prettier (used for formatting HTML/JS/CSS).
.air.toml: Configuration for Air (build commands, watch exclusions, and binary locations).