Overview

portless is a revolutionary tool designed to eliminate the hassle of managing port numbers in your local development environment. It intelligently replaces raw port numbers with stable, human-readable .localhost URLs, making your development workflow smoother and more intuitive for both you and your automated agents.

Key Features

• Named Local URLs: Assign predictable, named URLs (e.g., https://myapp.localhost) to your local development servers, replacing cryptic port numbers like http://localhost:3000.
• Automatic HTTPS & HTTP/2: Enjoy secure, encrypted communication with HTTP/2 support enabled by default for faster development builds, without any manual certificate configuration or browser warnings.
• Intelligent Framework Integration: Seamlessly works with popular frameworks like Next.js, Express, Nuxt, Vite, Astro, and more. portless automatically detects and configures port and host flags for optimal compatibility.
• Monorepo Support: Effortlessly manage multiple applications within a monorepo, with portless automatically inferring and assigning unique .localhost URLs based on your project structure and package names.
• Git Worktree Integration: Branches are automatically prepended as subdomains, ensuring each worktree has its own unique URL without any configuration changes.
• Custom TLD Support: Use custom TLDs like .test or even your own domain (e.g., dev.example.com) for local development, aligning your local environment more closely with production.
• LAN Mode for Network Access: Make your development servers accessible on your local network with mDNS-based .local hostnames, facilitating testing on mobile devices and other machines.
• External Sharing (Tailscale & ngrok): Easily expose your local development servers to the public internet or share them securely with teammates using integrations with Tailscale and ngrok.
• OS Startup Service: Configure portless to run as an OS startup service, ensuring your named URLs are available immediately after reboot without manual intervention.

Typical Use Cases

• Streamlining Local Development: Developers can ditch the memorization of port numbers and instead interact with their applications through clear, memorable URLs.
• Enhancing Collaboration: Teams can easily share access to local development environments using stable URLs, simplifying debugging and integration testing.
• Simplifying Monorepo Management: Developers working on large monorepos can manage and access individual services with distinct, user-friendly URLs, reducing confusion.
• Mimicking Production Environments: By supporting custom TLDs, portless allows developers to create local environments that closely mirror their production setups, leading to more robust testing.
• Facilitating Cross-Device Testing: LAN mode enables seamless access to local development servers from mobile devices and other machines on the same network.
• Quickly Sharing Work-in-Progress: Integrations with Tailscale and ngrok make it simple to share a live, local development build with stakeholders or colleagues for immediate feedback.