Terminal output

devhost writes for people by default and for agents and scripts when AGENT=1 is set. Both modes print the same information with the same exit codes; only the layout differs.

Stack logs

A running stack prints its own messages and every service’s output, each line labeled with who wrote it. devhost’s own lines use the manifest’s name, or devhost before the manifest is read.

For people (AGENT unset or 0), names are padded to a shared width and followed by | :

api      | listening
hello    | web (primary): https://hello.localhost
web      | a long line continues here
         | with the same separator alignment

• Each name gets its own color; a service’s stdout and stderr share it. A non-empty NO_COLOR, TERM=dumb, or redirected output turns colors off.
• Long lines wrap to the terminal width with the name column left blank. When devhost cannot read the terminal’s size it uses COLUMNS; with no width, lines are not wrapped. Wrapping keeps your tools’ own colors and handles wide characters.

For agents (AGENT=1, true, or yes), each line is name: message, with no padding, colors, or wrapping:

api: listening
hello: web (primary): https://hello.localhost

Your services’ output is never changed apart from the label.

Output for agents

AGENT=1 changes more than logs:

• Help becomes compact key: value text listing every command below the one you asked about, and starts with a line telling the agent to read devhost skill.
• Errors print as one devhost: ERR: line with the complete error. For people they print as devhost | [ERROR], often followed by an [INFO] hint.
• Warnings print as WARN: instead of [WARN].
• Caddy’s certificate prompt is never shown; devhost prints a warning naming devhost caddy trust instead.

$ devhost star
devhost | [ERROR] unknown command "star" for "devhost"; did you mean "stack" or "start" or "stop"?
devhost | [INFO] Run "devhost --help" for usage.
$ AGENT=1 devhost star
devhost: ERR: unknown command "star" for "devhost"; did you mean "stack" or "start" or "stop"?

Errors, warnings, and devhost stop progress go to stderr. Paths under your home directory are shortened to ~/ in devhost’s own messages. Output meant for other programs is identical in both modes: devhost stack list, stack find, service list, --version, completion scripts, and devhost caddy print-root-cert, which also keep absolute paths.

Caddy’s lines

Lines Caddy writes are labeled caddy (caddy | or caddy: ); devhost’s own messages about Caddy are labeled devhost.

• Successful route changes print nothing; devhost start --debug shows them.
• After a command succeeds, devhost shows only Caddy’s warnings and errors. After a failure it shows everything else too.
• devhost leaves out lines it reports itself or that no setting of yours can change: Caddy’s start confirmation, notes about the Caddyfile devhost generates, and trust-store notices such as not NSS security databases found or define JAVA_HOME environment variable to use the Java trust, which only mean there is no Firefox or Java trust store to update.

Caddy’s full log stays in <state>/caddy/caddy.runtime.log; see Files and directories.

Messages worth knowing

Message	Meaning
web (primary): https://app.localhost	A service’s URL, printed once it starts. One line per URL.
not started: admin, docs	Services left out because you named others on devhost start.
configuration reloaded: devhost.toml, …	A saved manifest edit was applied. See Hot reload.
configuration reload rejected	A saved edit was invalid; the stack keeps running as it was.
Received SIGINT (Ctrl-C) (signal 2); shutting down the stack.	Printed at once on the first shutdown signal; SIGTERM and SIGHUP name themselves the same way.
Stopping service web... / Stopped service web.	Shutdown progress for each service.
Stack stopped.	Every service and route was cleaned up. Wait for this line before assuming the stack is gone.
... sending SIGTERM (signal 15)	devhost is stopping a service that failed its health check. A following exited with code 143 from your tool is that stop.
Stopping zombie PID ... / Stopped zombie PID ...	A process left by an earlier run is being cleaned up. See Zombie cleanup messages.
Idle timeout of 1h reached	The idle timeout is stopping the stack.