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Development Environment Setup

This guide walks you through setting up a local development environment for the RocketRide Engine.

Prerequisites

Tool Version Notes
Node.js 18+ Runtime for the build system and TypeScript clients
pnpm 8+ Package manager (npm install -g pnpm)
Python 3.10+ Required for pipeline nodes, AI modules, and the Python SDK
C++ toolchain C++17-capable Required only when building the engine from source (see below)
Git 2.x Source control

C++ toolchain details (engine builds only)

  • macOS -- Xcode Command Line Tools (xcode-select --install)
  • Linux -- clang 16-18 with libc++ (the engine does not build with clang >= 19; GCC is not supported) -- provisioned by server:setup-tools
  • Windows -- Visual Studio 2019+ with the "Desktop development with C++" workload

Most contributors do not need the C++ toolchain. The builder downloads a pre-built engine binary by default.

Clone and Install

git clone https://github.com/rocketride-org/rocketride-server.git
cd rocketride-server
pnpm install

Environment Configuration

If the repository contains a .env.template or .env.example file, copy it:

cp .env.template .env   # or .env.example

Edit .env and fill in the values relevant to your setup (API keys, model endpoints, etc.). If no template exists, you can skip this step -- most functionality works with defaults.

Building

The project uses a unified build system. See Build System Reference for the full command, module, and output-layout reference.

# Show all available commands
./builder --help

# Full project build (downloads pre-built engine + all modules)
./builder build

# Build only the C++ engine
./builder server:build

# Build specific modules
./builder nodes:build
./builder vscode:build
./builder client-typescript:build client-python:build

Build output

Directory Contents
build/ Temporary build artifacts
dist/ Final distributable outputs
dist/server/ Engine executable and runtime
dist/clients/ Client library packages
dist/vscode/ VS Code extension (.vsix)

Running

Start the server

./builder server:build populates dist/server/, which is a complete runtime directory: the engine binary plus its ai/ runtime, the same layout a release archive ships. ai/eaas.py exists only there — it is copied out of packages/ai/src/ai/, never checked in at the repo root — so the engine is always launched from inside dist/server/, with the script path relative to that directory. (./builder server:run-eaas does exactly this, with cwd set to dist/server.) To run it as a standalone service rather than under the VS Code extension, start it there and bind it to localhost:

# Linux / macOS
cd dist/server && ./engine ./ai/eaas.py --host=127.0.0.1

# Windows
cd dist\server && engine.exe ./ai/eaas.py --host=127.0.0.1

It listens for the WebSocket protocol on port 5565. Only pass --host=0.0.0.0 once the engine sits behind TLS and authentication. On Linux, install the runtime dependencies first: libc++1, libc++abi1, libgomp1 (Debian/Ubuntu), libcxx libcxxabi libgomp (Fedora/RHEL), or libc++ libgomp (Alpine).

Operators who are not building from source download a release archive instead; that path is documented on the public Self-hosting page.

Full stack with Docker

To run the engine plus its bundled data stores (PostgreSQL, Milvus, ChromaDB) in one command, use the Compose stack in the repo instead of running the binary directly. Requires Docker Engine >= 24.0 and Docker Compose v2 >= 2.17:

./builder server:build       # the Compose image is built from dist/server/
cd docker
cp .env.example .env         # change every password before non-local use
docker compose up engine     # engine + its required PostgreSQL

docker compose up (no service) starts all vector stores too.

Connect the VS Code extension

  1. Build the extension: ./builder vscode:build
  2. Install the generated .vsix from dist/vscode/ in VS Code
  3. Click the RocketRide icon in the sidebar and connect to your running server

For VS Code extension development details, see VS Code extension docs.

Testing

# Run all tests
./builder test

# C++ engine tests only
./builder server:test

# Python tests only (nodes, AI, clients)
./builder nodes:test
./builder ai:test
./builder client-python:test

# TypeScript tests only
./builder client-typescript:test

# Other module tests
./builder client-mcp:test

For information on writing and running node-level tests, see Node Testing.

Further Reading

Contributor docs are grouped by subsystem. Everything under docs/development/ is unpublished — it never reaches docs.rocketride.org.

Build

Engine

  • Engine Reference -- C++ engine architecture, CLI options, task types, configuration
  • Crash Reporting -- Crashpad, symbols, reading a minidump
  • MCP Module -- the built-in HTTP MCP server: engine-client seam, credentials catalog gates, widget workspace

Nodes

Clients and apps

Project infrastructure

  • The Docs Pipeline -- how the documentation site is assembled, and what to touch to add, move, or rename a page
  • CI Gates -- what has to pass before a PR merges, and how to reproduce each check locally

Elsewhere