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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

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

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:

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Production build

Build the project and run the compiled server:
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:
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.