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This guide is for contributors or anyone who wants to run Claw Lens from source. If you just want to use the dashboard, see Quick Start.
Claw Lens requires Node.js 18 or later. Run node --version to check your version before proceeding.

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Clone and install

git clone https://github.com/msfirebird/claw-lens.git
cd claw-lens
npm install
cd src/ui && npm install && cd ../..
The project has two node_modules — one for the backend (Express + SQLite) and one for the frontend (React + Vite).

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Development mode

npm run dev
This runs the backend and frontend concurrently with hot reload:
  • Backend — Express server via ts-node-dev, auto-restarts on file changes
  • Frontend — React dev server on port 6060, proxies API requests to the backend on 4242
Code changes in either src/server/ or src/ui/ take effect immediately. To use a custom port: 
PORT=3000 npm run dev

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Production build

Build the project and run the compiled server: 
npm run build
npm start
This compiles TypeScript to dist/ and builds the React frontend to src/ui/dist/. The Express server serves both the API and the static frontend from a single process. To use a custom port or suppress auto-open: 
npm start -- --port 3000
npm start -- --no-open
Note the extra -- before flags when using npm start. This tells npm to pass the flags to the underlying script rather than consuming them itself.