0.5.2 - 2026-10-20

Release Notes

Fixed

• A running environment no longer stops when one check of its processes or listeners is slow, as on a loaded machine. Before, one ps or lsof call over its time limit stopped every service, with backend control command timed out. It stops only when checks keep failing for 30 seconds.

Install parcela 0.5.2

Install prebuilt binaries via shell script

curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -LsSf https://github.com/lostcoords/parcela/releases/download/v0.5.2/parcela-installer.sh | sh

Download parcela 0.5.2

File	Platform	Checksum
parcela-aarch64-apple-darwin.tar.gz	Apple Silicon macOS	checksum
parcela-x86_64-apple-darwin.tar.gz	Intel macOS	checksum
parcela-aarch64-unknown-linux-gnu.tar.gz	ARM64 Linux	checksum
parcela-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu.tar.gz	x64 Linux	checksum

0.5.1 - 2026-10-20

Release Notes

Fixed

• A compose service's volumes and networks with a fixed name are now each environment's own. Before, two environments shared them, so two databases could run on one data directory. external volumes and networks stay shared.
• Parcela reads the Compose file with the env from parcela.yaml that needs no port, like COMPOSE_ENV_FILES, as docker compose up does. A Compose file that requires such a variable failed before anything started.
• parcela proxy restart replaces a running proxy that this Parcela cannot read, such as one from 0.4. It failed because that proxy still held the port.

Changed

• parcela rm removes a compose service's containers and network, and lists the volumes it keeps.
• parcela upgrade always installs the latest release unless --nightly is given, instead of staying on nightly for a nightly or locally built binary. --stable is gone.

Removed

• parcela url --service NAME. Use parcela url NAME.
• Migrations for registries from before 0.1.0.

Install parcela 0.5.1

Install prebuilt binaries via shell script

curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -LsSf https://github.com/lostcoords/parcela/releases/download/v0.5.1/parcela-installer.sh | sh

Download parcela 0.5.1

File	Platform	Checksum
parcela-aarch64-apple-darwin.tar.gz	Apple Silicon macOS	checksum
parcela-x86_64-apple-darwin.tar.gz	Intel macOS	checksum
parcela-aarch64-unknown-linux-gnu.tar.gz	ARM64 Linux	checksum
parcela-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu.tar.gz	x64 Linux	checksum

0.5.0 - 2026-10-20

Release Notes

Databases and other containers can come from the project's own docker-compose.yml, with their own containers, volumes, ports and URLs in every environment, next to native apps. parcela.yaml files from 0.4 work unchanged.

Added

• services.<name>.compose runs containers from the project's own Docker Compose file next to native apps: compose: {file: docker-compose.yml, services: [postgres]}. Each environment gets its own Compose project, so its own containers, network and volumes, and a leased loopback port for every port the containers publish, as PARCELA_PORT_<SERVICE>. The Compose file needs no changes: an override in the environment's runtime directory replaces its host ports and drops container_name. Hooks and tasks get COMPOSE_PROJECT_NAME and COMPOSE_FILE, and the Compose file's default override file applies as with plain docker compose. compose.http gives a container that serves HTTP its own HTTPS URL, readiness check and sharing, or the environment's own URL for an app that runs entirely in Docker. parcela doctor checks the file and services. See compose.
• services.<name>.stop: a command that stops what a service started outside its own processes, like docker compose stop for a docker compose up service. It runs on every stop, after the service's dependents and before its SIGTERM, even if the service already exited or Parcela crashed. A failed one leaves the environment interrupted until down runs it again. A compose service sets it for you.
• parcela completion <shell> prints shell completions. parcela open [SERVICE] opens a URL in the browser, and url [SERVICE] prints one service's URL.
• -w/--workspace takes an environment's name, URL, hostname or ID. -C is short for --path.
• readiness_timeout_seconds in parcela.yaml sets how long up and restart wait for the services, instead of 60 seconds.
• parcela upgrade reruns install.sh for an install.sh install, staying on nightly or stable unless --nightly or --stable says otherwise. For Homebrew and cargo installs it prints the command to run instead.

Fixed

• up --detach no longer gives up after the readiness timeout while a long setup or prestart hook is still running; it waits for the owner, which does not count hook time.

Changed

• status and ls answer in about 80 ms instead of 400–800 ms: the supervisor answers requests while it waits, and status gets the process list in one reply.
• Errors name the next step for a missing parcela.yaml, an unstarted checkout, an unknown environment and a renamed project. proxy status and doctor flag a 443 relay installed without port 80.
• The proxy records a protocol number, so releases that share it take over its proxy quietly.
• Documentation centers on getting started, app configuration, parallel worktrees, and troubleshooting. Older guide URLs redirect to retained sections. Tool names have icons and accent colors, and code examples wrap within the page.
• Parcela sends anonymous usage data: the command, flag names, exit code, a duration range, version, OS, install method and a random install ID, never paths, names, URLs or values. Nothing is sent before a one-time notice. parcela telemetry disable, DO_NOT_TRACK=1 or PARCELA_TELEMETRY_DISABLED=1 turns it off, and PARCELA_TELEMETRY_DEBUG=1 prints the event instead. See https://parcela.run/docs/telemetry/.
• The repository moved to github.com/lostcoords/parcela and the Homebrew tap to lostcoords/tap: brew install lostcoords/tap/parcela. The old addresses redirect.
• The website moved to https://parcela.run: the landing page at the root, the docs under /docs/, and install.sh and the schema at https://parcela.run/install.sh and https://parcela.run/schema/v1.json. parcela init, parcela upgrade and the schema's $id use the new addresses. parcela.davafons.com no longer serves the site.
• The proxy redirects plain HTTP on its port to HTTPS. parcela proxy install also relays port 80 when it is free, so http://name.localhost opens the environment. Run parcela proxy install again to add it to an existing install, then parcela proxy restart.
• up and proxy status suggest parcela trust only while the certificate authority is not trusted. proxy status --json reports it as trusted instead of the always-false browser_trust_verified.
• Rerunning install.sh over an earlier version says so and how to finish the upgrade. The FAQ shows how to upgrade each kind of install.

Install parcela 0.5.0

Install prebuilt binaries via shell script

curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -LsSf https://github.com/lostcoords/parcela/releases/download/v0.5.0/parcela-installer.sh | sh

Download parcela 0.5.0

File	Platform	Checksum
parcela-aarch64-apple-darwin.tar.gz	Apple Silicon macOS	checksum
parcela-x86_64-apple-darwin.tar.gz	Intel macOS	checksum
parcela-aarch64-unknown-linux-gnu.tar.gz	ARM64 Linux	checksum
parcela-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu.tar.gz	x64 Linux	checksum

Nightly 0.5.2+20261020.1af6f0a

Parcela 0.5.2+20261020.1af6f0a, built from 1af6f0a. Install: curl -fsSL https://parcela.run/install.sh | sh -s -- --nightly

0.4.0 - 2026-10-20

Release Notes

Parcela runs each environment's processes itself, so Process Compose is no longer needed; only Caddy is. parcela.yaml does not change. Before upgrading, run parcela down --all-projects and parcela proxy stop: environments and a proxy started by 0.3 or earlier cannot be stopped, taken over or reached by 0.4.

Added

• up --lan and up --tailscale (and restart) also serve one environment to other devices: at .local names on the LAN through mDNS, or on the tailnet through tailscale serve. PARCELA_SHARE_HOSTS lists the shared hostnames for a dev server's host check.
• Colors on a terminal: help, errors, and a color per process in parcela logs. NO_COLOR turns them off.
• hooks.teardown runs on parcela rm, for example to drop the environment's database. A failed teardown keeps the environment registered.
• install.sh also installs Caddy into ~/.local/bin when no supported version is on PATH, checking the download against its release checksums. It checks Parcela's own download the same way, on macOS too, prints how to add ~/.local/bin to PATH instead of editing shell profiles, and lists the files it wrote. --help lists its options.
• parcela logs --follow streams new lines from every process, or one.
• -d is short for --detach.
• parcela logs works after down too, until the next run: each process writes to log/processes/<name>.log in the runtime directory, cut to <name>.log.1 past 16 MB.
• Nightly builds of main: install.sh --nightly installs the newest one. Builds other than a release tag report the commit in --version, like 0.3.0+20261019.4fed620.
• The first up in a terminal trusts Parcela's certificate authority when it is not trusted yet, behind the system password prompt, once per authority. Never without a terminal; PARCELA_NO_TRUST=1 turns it off.
• parcela proxy install on macOS makes URLs portless (https://hello.localhost): launchd owns 127.0.0.1:443 and relays each connection to the proxy as you. uninstall removes it, and refuses a user name that could change the service it installs.
• http.wildcard: true sends every subdomain of a service's host to it, for subdomain-per-tenant apps.
• --lan-ip picks the LAN address for --lan. Both refuse a public address. PARCELA_LAN=1 and PARCELA_TAILSCALE=1 work like the flags.
• A JSON Schema for parcela.yaml at https://parcela.davafons.com/schema/v1.json, generated from the parser. parcela init adds the line editors use to find it.

Changed

• Parcela supervises the processes: each runs with bash -c (or sh -c) in its own process group, starts once its dependencies are ready, and stops in reverse dependency order, SIGTERM then SIGKILL after 10 seconds. Until the environment is first ready, a failed hook, an exited HTTP service or a process that exits nonzero stops up at once and names it, instead of waiting for the readiness timeout. Foreground up prefixes each line with its process's name.
• If an owner dies, the next up, down or recover adopts its processes by their recorded birth identity, and down stops ones that outlived it instead of refusing.
• On macOS, sockets live in the per-user temporary directory instead of /tmp/parcela-<uid>, so another user cannot block Parcela by creating that directory first.
• Removed: the hidden --process-compose option, parcela doctor's Process Compose check, child_pid in status --json, and log/process-compose.log. A detached owner's owner.log holds process output only until the run is first ready.
• status --json process states are exactly pending, running, stopping, restarting, completed, exited and skipped, instead of Process Compose's names.
• The proxy listens on one HTTPS port, and URLs leave it out when it is 443. The forwarded "standard ports" mode and its port-80 listener are gone. --port accepts any port the system lets a normal user listen on.
• If the proxy dies while environments run, they start it again within a few seconds. parcela proxy stop still stops it for good.
• restart picks up added, removed and renamed services; down and up are no longer needed for that.
• up on a ready environment prints its URLs and exits 0, like docker compose up -d.
• Clearer errors: a readiness timeout says what each service answered, a busy --backend-port names its holder, and an unknown service or task lists the valid names.
• --help lists the global options in their own section. status --all is gone; use ls.

Fixed

• Readiness checks stop once a service is ready, so they no longer fill its log.
• --backend-port also refuses a port another program holds on 0.0.0.0 or [::], naming the holder before anything starts.
• Long branch and workspace names are cut to fit a hostname, ending in a short hash, instead of failing up.
• An up interrupted or killed before it launched anything no longer leaves the environment stuck as starting: Ctrl-C during startup stops it cleanly, and the next up or down releases its ports.

Install parcela 0.4.0

Install prebuilt binaries via shell script

curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -LsSf https://github.com/davafons/parcela/releases/download/v0.4.0/parcela-installer.sh | sh

Download parcela 0.4.0

File	Platform	Checksum
parcela-aarch64-apple-darwin.tar.gz	Apple Silicon macOS	checksum
parcela-x86_64-apple-darwin.tar.gz	Intel macOS	checksum
parcela-aarch64-unknown-linux-gnu.tar.gz	ARM64 Linux	checksum
parcela-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu.tar.gz	x64 Linux	checksum

Parcela 0.3.0: one parcela.yaml format with setup hooks

Release Notes

parcela.yaml has a new format, version 1. Files written for 0.2 or earlier need rewriting, and parcela doctor links to the new format. The configuration reference shows the new format.

Added

• hooks.setup runs once in each new environment and hooks.prestart on every up, after the services they depends_on and before every other service. A failed hook stops up. up --setup and restart --setup run setup again.
• Services take depends_on, working_dir, env and, without http, a healthcheck command. Dependencies wait for readiness.
• PARCELA_DATA_DIR, PARCELA_ENVIRONMENT_NAME and PARCELA_PRIMARY_DIR.
• Top-level x- keys are ignored, for YAML anchors.
• examples/rails-postgres, and a tutorial app with a SQLite database per environment.

Changed

• One format: version and project are required, and every service is a mapping under services with a command. HTTP services declare http: {healthcheck, subdomain}; the one without subdomain gets the environment's URL.
• Tasks take a shell command instead of argv. Arguments after -- are appended.
• parcela logs without a service prints every service, worker and hook, each line prefixed with its name.

Removed

• The top-level short form (web: bin/dev), workers, default_service, environment (now env), inherit_environment, shutdown_timeout_seconds and the process_compose pass-through.

Fixed

• parcela doctor names the right Process Compose tap (f1bonacc1/tap/process-compose) and links each backend's install page.

Install parcela 0.3.0

Install prebuilt binaries via shell script

curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -LsSf https://github.com/davafons/parcela/releases/download/v0.3.0/parcela-installer.sh | sh

Download parcela 0.3.0

File	Platform	Checksum
parcela-aarch64-apple-darwin.tar.gz	Apple Silicon macOS	checksum
parcela-x86_64-apple-darwin.tar.gz	Intel macOS	checksum
parcela-aarch64-unknown-linux-gnu.tar.gz	ARM64 Linux	checksum
parcela-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu.tar.gz	x64 Linux	checksum

Parcela 0.2.0: a smaller CLI and a faster proxy

Release Notes

A smaller CLI and a faster proxy.

Changed

• parcela status lists each service and worker process; parcela services is removed.
• parcela ls also shows this project's jj workspaces and Git worktrees that were never started, with the URL they would get; the workspace commands are removed.
• parcela doctor reports the same configuration error as up; parcela config check is removed.
• parcela up takes back control of services left running after Parcela's supervising process died. recover and context are hidden.
• Foreground up prints ✓ <name> is running at <url> and no longer shows Process Compose debug lines.
• --human is removed; text is the default on a terminal.

Fixed

• Two simultaneous first parcela up runs no longer fail with "unsupported registry schema 0".
• The proxy refreshes routes in about 85 ms with five running environments, down from about 1.2 s, so routes no longer come close to their 3-second expiry under load.

Install parcela 0.2.0

Install prebuilt binaries via shell script

curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -LsSf https://github.com/davafons/parcela/releases/download/v0.2.0/parcela-installer.sh | sh

Download parcela 0.2.0

File	Platform	Checksum
parcela-aarch64-apple-darwin.tar.gz	Apple Silicon macOS	checksum
parcela-x86_64-apple-darwin.tar.gz	Intel macOS	checksum
parcela-aarch64-unknown-linux-gnu.tar.gz	ARM64 Linux	checksum
parcela-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu.tar.gz	x64 Linux	checksum

0.1.0 - 2026-10-17

Release Notes

First release. Run every checkout of a project as its own local environment, at its own HTTPS URL, in parallel.

Added

• parcela init writes a one-line parcela.yaml, guessing the dev server command from package.json, Rails or Django.
• Short-form manifests: web: <command>, a services: map of commands, workers: for unrouted processes and ports: for named non-HTTP ports. The full schema still works.
• parcela up registers the checkout itself. The main checkout gets the project URL; linked jj workspaces and Git worktrees get their workspace or directory name, or --name.
• A background HTTPS proxy on the no-sudo port 1443, started by the first up. parcela proxy start|stop|restart|status manage it, and --port saves another port.
• parcela trust installs Parcela's local CA after saying what it changes; --print only prints the certificate path.
• Named ports (ports: [db, redis]) export PARCELA_PORT_<NAME>, distinct per environment and kept across restarts.
• parcela ls, down --all, down --all-projects, rm and rm --prune.
• parcela doctor checks backends, configuration, state and the proxy, and names the next step.
• Aligned text on a terminal and JSON when piped or with --json.
• Prebuilt binaries for macOS and Linux with a shell installer.

Fixed

• Environments whose supervisor and services all died (for example after kill -9) no longer block up and down.
• Services listening on localhost, [::1] or a wildcard address are accepted when they belong to the environment.
• Unix sockets live in /tmp/parcela-<uid>, so long home or state paths work.
• Backend ports come from 20000–29999 instead of the OS ephemeral range, so other programs cannot take them before a service binds.

Removed

• Workspace transfer, checkpoints and SQLite streaming. Manifests with a transfer: key are rejected.
• --test-profile and the raw proxy listener flags; a saved port profile replaces them.

Install parcela 0.1.0

Install prebuilt binaries via shell script

curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -LsSf https://github.com/davafons/parcela/releases/download/v0.1.0/parcela-installer.sh | sh

Download parcela 0.1.0

File	Platform	Checksum
parcela-aarch64-apple-darwin.tar.gz	Apple Silicon macOS	checksum
parcela-x86_64-apple-darwin.tar.gz	Intel macOS	checksum
parcela-aarch64-unknown-linux-gnu.tar.gz	ARM64 Linux	checksum
parcela-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu.tar.gz	x64 Linux	checksum