Using Lima for development

This guide shows a practical Lima workflow for local development on macOS.

It runs:

• Museum + Postgres via Docker Compose
• Ente Paste web app on port 3008

1. Start Lima

limactl start template://docker

Then verify shell access:

limactl shell docker /bin/bash -lc 'id && uname -a'

2. Clone repo inside the VM

Using a VM-local clone avoids host-mount permission differences.

limactl shell docker /bin/bash -lc '
  cd ~ &&
  git clone https://github.com/ente-io/ente.git &&
  cd ente &&
  git submodule update --init --recursive
'

3. Start Museum + Postgres

limactl shell docker /bin/bash -lc '
  cd ~/ente/server &&
  touch museum.yaml &&
  mkdir -p data &&
  cat > museum.yaml <<EOF
apps:
  public-paste: http://localhost:3008
EOF
  sudo docker compose up -d --build
'

Check health:

limactl shell docker /bin/bash -lc 'curl -fsS http://localhost:8080/ping'

4. Run Ente Paste web app

Run this in a separate terminal:

limactl shell docker /bin/bash -lc '
  sudo docker run --rm --name paste-dev \
    -p 3008:3008 \
    -v "$HOME/ente/web:/workspace" \
    -w /workspace \
    -e NEXT_PUBLIC_ENTE_ENDPOINT=http://localhost:8080 \
    node:22-bookworm \
    bash -lc "
      corepack enable &&
      corepack prepare yarn@1.22.22 --activate &&
      yarn install --frozen-lockfile &&
      yarn workspace paste next dev -p 3008
    "
'

5. Open in browser

• Paste app: http://localhost:3008
• Museum API: http://localhost:8080/ping

If localhost ports are not reachable from your host, create an SSH tunnel:

ssh -F ~/.lima/docker/ssh.config \
  -N \
  -L 8080:127.0.0.1:8080 \
  -L 3008:127.0.0.1:3008 \
  lima-docker

6. Stop services

limactl shell docker /bin/bash -lc '
  cd ~/ente/server &&
  sudo docker compose down &&
  sudo docker rm -f paste-dev >/dev/null 2>&1 || true
'