cowbell requires npx at runtime

[gedw99]

Hey @akclace

Not sure if you want the user to need the npx binary installed ?

I don't have it locally and when I run cowbell the web browser GUI returns:

error initializing app: error starting tailwind watcher : exec: "npx": executable file not found in $PATH

[gedw99]

there is a standalone tailwinds binary btw: https://tailwindcss.com/blog/standalone-cli

[akclace]

If the app is created with the --is_dev option, that means development mode and the Clace server tries to setup the dev environment. The cowbull app uses DaisyUI, so it uses npx tailwindcss as the watcher process, which needs npm and DaisyUI.

If the app is using tailwind, without DaisyUI, then the standalone CLI can be used. Set

[system]
tailwindcss_command = "/path/to/tailwindcss"

in clace.toml config, see https://clace.io/docs/app/styling/#tailwindcss. Unfortunately, DaisyUI cannot work with the standalone tailwind CLI, see saadeghi/daisyui#770.

If you do not set --is_dev, then the watcher is not started, it should work fine. I will fix the dev mode startup such that if the watcher fails to start, and the target style file is already present, it is a warning rather than an error.

The cowbull app depends on a service running on port 9999 to do the data persistence, so the cowbull app will not work on your machine. The plan is to add a data persistence layer in Clace later.

[akclace]

Dev mode is updated such that if the watcher cannot be started, that is a warning rather than a error