unable to build from source

[MetalDude101]

I am new to react based apps and unfamiliar with the tools.
Is there a place that mentions the exact tools, steps, commands (in order) to build likec4?
I went down a rabbit hole of: npm, pnpm, turbo?, yarn, etc...
Also, your elements in a "workspace" seem non-standard by one of the tools.
I need some help to do this, so i can show how this works to management.
Thanks

[davydkov]

Hi @MetalDude101 (nice nickname)

Do I understand you right, you want to build likec4 from sources, this repository?
If so, take a look at GitHub workflows.
It always helps me to understand how projects are built, tested, etc.

As for LikeC4, you need:

• nodejs 20.x
• yarn cli (like 1.22.21), that delegates to the version at .yarn/releases

Then, in root:

yarn install
yarn build
# or better
yarn typecheck 

typecheck triggers build, but also gets caches of ts compile results.

Development workflow

Option 1: there is launch configuration to run/debug extension.
Hint: I also keep running yarn dev in packages/vscode-preview.
This rebuilds Preview panel. If I change only the UI part, it's enough to close and open the panel in a running extension (no need to restart it).

Option 2: my main workflow to work on anything else except vscode extension.
Run yarn dev in packages/likec4 (there are multiple "dev" commands to use different .c4 sources).

And sometimes, keep running yarn vitest:ui in the root.

Also, your elements in a "workspace" seem non-standard by one of the tools.

Yes, that's right.
Package exports ts-files, but when published, exports js files.
But this is only to make development more comfortable (like no need to run watch tasks).

[MetalDude101]

What is the expected output of all this? This page: https://likec4.dev/docs/tools/cli/ mentions lots of tools. It looks like, at some point, an executable is created. "Then, you can call likec4 directly: likec4 [command] "
How can i get a website created to host\run likec4?