Development

During development you don't want to pack a .wvb on every change. Instead, run your framework's dev server and point the native Local Protocol at it, so the webview loads your live, hot-reloading UI.

Run your dev server

Start your framework's dev server as you normally would:

vite dev

Note the URL it prints (for example http://localhost:5173) — the native side proxies to it.

Point the Local Protocol at it

The native app registers two schemes:

• A Bundle Protocol that serves files from the packed .wvb bundle.
• A Local Protocol that proxies requests to your dev server.

You pick which one the webview loads based on whether the app is running in development or production:

• Development — load the Local Protocol URL (e.g. app-local://app.wvb). Requests forward to your dev server, so hot reload works.
• Production — load the Bundle Protocol URL (e.g. app://app.wvb). Files come straight from the bundle.

The exact scheme names, the host-to-dev-server mapping, and the dev-vs-prod switch are native-side config. Set them up on your platform's Local development page:

Preview a packed bundle

To check the production build — the packed .wvb, not the dev server — before shipping, serve it over HTTP with wvb serve:

wvb serve ./build/app.wvb

This unpacks one bundle and serves it at http://localhost:4312, matching how the webview loads it at runtime.