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dev

Terminal window
alchemy dev [options]

Run your stack in development mode with hot reloading. Resources are deployed to the cloud while Workers run in the local dev runtime; file changes trigger automatic rebuilds and hot reloads.

How it works

Section titled “How it works”

dev re-runs your stack under bun --watch (or node --watch with type-stripping flags on supported Node versions) via alchemy/bin/exec.

--yes and dev mode are implied, so approval prompts never appear.

A failed apply keeps dev alive so healthy resources keep serving — fix the error and save to redeploy.

Flags

Section titled “Flags”
Option Description
--stage <name> Stage to use for dev (defaults to $ALCHEMY_STAGE or dev_$USER)
--force Force updates for resources that would otherwise no-op
--profile <name> Auth profile to use (defaults to $ALCHEMY_PROFILE or default)
--env-file <path> Load environment variables from a file
--config, -c <file> Stack file to run (defaults to alchemy.run.ts)

alchemy deploy defaults to live_$USER. Using a different default here means a bare alchemy dev will not replace a stage you deployed. Pass --stage (or $ALCHEMY_STAGE) to run local emulation against a specific stage — including one you also deploy.

Tear the default local-dev stage down with alchemy destroy --stage dev_$USER.

Examples

Section titled “Examples”
Terminal window
# Start dev mode (stage dev_$USER)
alchemy dev


# Emulate the prod program locally (replaces that stage's local/live mode)
alchemy dev --stage prod

Where next

Section titled “Where next”