Add "--url" option for local server

[clink-aaron]

the twilio-run command hostname is currently hardcoded to localhost. This needs to be configurable to allow development in situations such as development in a docker container or behind a reverse proxy.

Digging through the source it doesn't appear that there is any such flag available, but if we can get the config.url value into the process, most everything else is written to accommodate it. There already is a property url on the config object. it should be as easy as checking for the existence of the flag and defaulting to it rather than hard coding the previous value.

I started working to add the feature, but I'm not familiar with the testing setup, and don't really want to polish it up if it's something the maintainers aren't open to. It likely would require a bit of a refactor considering getUrl() has the side effect of potentially running its own ngrok, so the ngrok stuff would need to be moved to the app boot process instead.

why not just use ngrok?

• I often want to work on something not exposed to the world
• local development without internet
• I already have my own ngrok setup
• I don't feel like sharing ngrok domains, or re-configuring free ones every time I run it

thoughts

Previously the app was listening on all interfaces, and that was fine. I get the security concerns and that's valid, but the way to remedy is to allow it to be configurable, not remove the functionality entirely.

Are the maintainers omitting this feature intentionally, or would this be a feature likely to be merged?

[welcome]

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[philnash]

I'm certainly not against this, seems like a good idea to me. I definitely get not necessarily wanting to work with ngrok (or working with ngrok but not using the built in version).

I wonder if --hostname or --host would be a better flag than --url?

[clink-aaron]

I wonder if --hostname or --host would be a better flag than --url?

Potentially, but using --url would be easier. I noticed that it likely was an option at one point, see here:

serverless-toolkit/packages/twilio-run/src/runtime/server.ts

Lines 162 to 171 in 87cca3c

	/** @deprecated */
	export async function createServer(
	port: string | number = DEFAULT_PORT,
	config: StartCliConfig
	): Promise<Express> {
	config = {
	...config,
	url: config.url || `http://localhost:${port}`,
	baseDir: config.baseDir || process.cwd(),
	};

Plus, if using url it would allow configuring port, protocol (http/https) in a single config property, and the code already supports the url config object.

[dkundel]

Yeah I'd be fine with merging such a change as long as the description is fine in terms of what it's purpose is.

[philnash]

Plus, if using url it would allow configuring port, protocol (http/https) in a single config property, and the code already supports the url config object.

Yep, fair enough! I would back this feature too. 👍

[makserik]

Hi @clink-aaron are you still up to merging your changes regarding this --url flag?

[github-actions]

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