For AI agents: the complete documentation index is available at https://ciderpress.dev/llms.txt, the full documentation bundle is available at https://ciderpress.dev/llms-full.txt, and this page is available as Markdown at https://ciderpress.dev/contributing/guides/getting-started.md.
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ciderpress

    Get Started Contributing

    Set up your local environment to contribute to ciderpress.

    Prerequisites

    • Node.js >= 24.0.0
    • pnpm 10.x (any recent pnpm will do — the packageManager field pins the exact version and pnpm switches to it automatically)
    • Git
    • Claude Code CLI (optional but recommended)

    Steps

    1. Fork and clone

    gh repo fork thebytefarm/ciderpress --clone
cd ciderpress

    2. Install dependencies

    pnpm install

    3. Verify the build

    Run a full build and check suite to confirm everything works:

    pnpm build && pnpm check

    Build must run first so that workspace packages have compiled output for cross-package type checking.

    4. Run the dev server

    Start the ciderpress documentation site locally using the project-blessed script (package.json:22):

    pnpm docs:dev

    For non-TTY shells (tmux panes without a real PTY, background agent tasks, CI logs), use the headless variant — it skips the Ink TUI and emits plain log output:

    pnpm docs:dev --headless

    Both run a sync + Rspress dev server on http://localhost:6174 with file watching.

    5. Understand the project

    Read the project docs in this order:

    1. CLAUDE.md (repo root) -- tech stack, project structure, available commands
    2. contributing/concepts/architecture.md -- packages, sync engine, and data flow
    3. contributing/concepts/engine/overview.md -- sync engine, build vs dev, key concepts
    4. Relevant standards in the Contributing overview as needed

    6. Set up Claude Code (optional)

    The repo includes built-in configuration for Claude Code:

    FilePurpose
    CLAUDE.mdPersona, project structure, tech stack, and commands
    .claude/settings.jsonPostToolUse hooks that auto-format and lint TypeScript files on save
    .claude/rules/typescript.mdFunctional programming rules Claude follows for all packages/**/*.ts files

    Verification

    Confirm all checks pass:

    pnpm build && pnpm check

    Build must run first so that workspace packages have compiled output for cross-package type checking.

    Troubleshooting

    pnpm not found

    Issue: Running pnpm returns "command not found."

    Fix:

    npm install -g pnpm

    Once pnpm is on your PATH it reads the packageManager field in the root package.json and switches itself to the pinned version, so the globally installed one only needs to be recent enough to bootstrap.

    Lockfile mismatch after switching branches

    Issue: Build or install fails after checking out a different branch.

    Fix:

    pnpm install

    References