Code and development machines

Your development machine runs the coding agent, terminal, editor, frontend preview and repository-backed backend development processes. The published website and deployed services run separately.

Opening the workspace can start or reconnect the machine. Read the allocation, retained-storage, service-startup and chat-connection stages to identify a problem. Insufficient workspace storage can block a new machine even when compute hours remain.

1. Open System Explorer → Code, or Open code from Frontend.
2. Find the active frontend and backend directories. New factories normally use sibling factories/<factory-id>/frontend and backend folders; existing applications keep their configured paths.
3. Read surrounding code, make the change, and run the project’s checks.
4. Try the complete customer task in Preview and verify the API response and saved data where applicable.
5. Review the intended source in deployment review before publishing. Follow the repository’s approval rules for any Git commit or push.

A frontend is optional for backend-only work. Prebuilt-image services do not need a source checkout. Use the application’s configured paths and commands rather than renaming an existing project to match an example.

Register the service in System Explorer → Services, enable its database and required secret bindings, and configure its development command and port. Repository development uses the working tree. The frontend binding selects that development endpoint without substituting the deployed API when the local backend fails.

Install dependencies before starting the service. Source watchers reload code changes; dependency, command or environment changes can require a restart. Preview calls can write to real databases and storage. Development and production can share these resources, so verify the target before migrations or destructive tests.

Open Factory Settings to inspect the account’s development-machine idle policy. Editor, terminal, file, build and chat activity reset its human-activity timer; background polling does not.

Use Development machine resources in the workspace header to inspect capacity, choose an available size or restart. A restart interrupts active processes and connections; it does not publish the app.

1. Resume the existing factory and wait for retained storage and the runtime to become ready.
2. Check source files, lockfiles and local changes before accepting a reset or fresh import.
3. Let dependency setup complete and start the bound backend services, then reopen Preview.
4. If files are missing or a repository refresh conflicts, preserve what remains and inspect workspace and Git state before changing it.

Git history and remote synchronization provide version history and a source copy outside the workspace. Retained storage does not prove that a commit was pushed or that independent backups exist. Workspace deletion, expiry and purge differ from stopping its compute.