Manual fresh-user clean-slate test surfaced three friction points in
the existing dev-start.sh:
1. The script ran docker compose -f docker-compose.infra.yml
directly, bypassing infra/scripts/setup.sh — so the workspace
template registry was never populated and the canvas template
palette came up empty (the "Template palette is empty"
troubleshooting hit).
2. ADMIN_TOKEN was not handled at all. Without it, the AdminAuth
fail-open gate worked initially but slammed shut the moment the
first workspace registered a token — at which point the canvas
could no longer call /workspaces or /templates. New users hit
401s with no obvious next step.
3. The script wasn't mentioned in docs/quickstart.md. New users
followed the documented 4-step manual flow and never discovered
the single command existed.
Fixes:
- dev-start.sh now calls infra/scripts/setup.sh, which brings up
full infra (postgres + redis + langfuse + clickhouse + temporal)
AND populates the template/plugin registry from manifest.json.
- On first run, dev-start.sh writes MOLECULE_ENV=development to
.env. This activates middleware.isDevModeFailOpen() which lets
the canvas keep calling admin endpoints without a bearer (the
intended local-dev escape hatch). The .env is preserved on
re-runs and sourced before the platform launches.
- The script intentionally does NOT auto-generate an ADMIN_TOKEN.
A first attempt did, and broke the canvas because isDevModeFailOpen
requires ADMIN_TOKEN empty AND MOLECULE_ENV=development together.
Setting ADMIN_TOKEN in dev would close the hatch and the canvas
has no way to read that token in a dev build (no
NEXT_PUBLIC_ADMIN_TOKEN bake step here). The .env comment block
explicitly warns future contributors not to add it.
- Both processes' logs go to /tmp/molecule-{platform,canvas}.log
instead of stdout-mixed so the readiness banner stays clean.
- Health-poll loops cap at 30s with a clear timeout error pointing
to the log file, instead of hanging forever.
- The readiness banner now lists the log paths AND tells the user
the next step is "open localhost:3000 → add API key in Config →
Secrets & API Keys → Global", instead of just listing service
URLs.
Quickstart doc rewrite leads with:
git clone ...
cd molecule-monorepo
./scripts/dev-start.sh
The 4-step manual flow is preserved as "Manual setup (advanced)"
for contributors who want per-component logs.
Verified end-to-end from clean Docker (no containers, no volumes,
no .env) three times: total wall-clock ~12s for a re-run with
cached npm/docker layers. Platform's HTTP 200 on /workspaces
without a bearer confirms the dev-mode auth hatch is active.
|
||
|---|---|---|
| .. | ||
| adapters | ||
| adr | ||
| agent-runtime | ||
| api-protocol | ||
| architecture | ||
| assets | ||
| blog | ||
| development | ||
| devrel/demos/tool-trace-platform-instructions | ||
| engineering | ||
| frontend | ||
| guides | ||
| incidents | ||
| infra | ||
| integrations | ||
| pages/api | ||
| plugins | ||
| tutorials | ||
| .gitignore | ||
| api-reference.md | ||
| ecosystem-watch.md | ||
| glossary.md | ||
| index.md | ||
| internal-content-policy.md | ||
| quickstart.md | ||
| README.md | ||
| workspace-runtime-package.md | ||
docs/
This directory serves two purposes:
- Markdown content — everything under
architecture/,agent-runtime/,api-protocol/,development/,frontend/,plugins/,product/, etc. This is what agents and humans read. - VitePress site —
.vitepress/config.ts,package.json,package-lock.json. These drive the rendered documentation site.
Local preview
cd docs
npm install
npm run dev # preview on http://localhost:5173
npm run build # static build to docs/.vitepress/dist/
Conventions
- New top-level docs must be linked from
PLAN.md,README.md, andCLAUDE.md— otherwise agents can't find them (see.claude/memoryfeedback_cross_reference_docs.md). edit-history/YYYY-MM-DD.mdis append-only log of significant changes; don't rewrite history.archive/holds one-shot analyses and retired docs — kept for context but not maintained.
Why site tooling lives here (not in docs-site/)
VitePress expects its config at <root>/.vitepress/config.ts where <root> is also the content directory. Splitting tooling into a sibling docs-site/ would require a non-trivial srcDir shim and break relative links in .vitepress/config.ts. Keeping both together is the pragmatic choice; this README is the tradeoff ledger.