Host-Proxy Sites

A host-proxy site runs your project's dev server directly on the host instead of inside a container, and nginx reverse-proxies the site's domain to it. The dev server can be anything that listens on a port: a Node tool (NestJS, Next, Nuxt, Vite, Angular), a Python server (Django, FastAPI/uvicorn), Rails, a Go or Rust binary, or any command you'd normally run by hand. Lerd supervises it as a worker so it auto-restarts, has logs, and self-heals.

Compared to custom containers, host-proxy sites skip the image build and the container entirely, so they start instantly and file-watch/HMR works natively (no virtiofs inotify caveat). The trade-off is that the dev server runs on the host, so it reaches lerd's services over loopback rather than the container network. Lerd's env writer handles that for you (see Env).

Quick start

For a Node project, lerd init sets it up for you. When a package.json is present and there's no PHP, the wizard offers proxy mode as the default, picks the dev script (start:dev, dev, serve, start in preference order), auto-assigns a free port, and asks about HTTPS and services:

cd ~/Projects/api.example.com
lerd init
lerd link

For any other language, write the proxy block in .lerd.yaml by hand and link. The command and port are all lerd needs:

domains:
  - api.example.com
secured: true
services:
  - postgres
  - redis
proxy:
  command: python manage.py runserver 0.0.0.0:8000
  port: 8000

lerd link

Lerd starts the dev server, generates the proxy vhost, and serves the domain. Open https://api.example.com.test (or whatever TLD you configured).

Configuration

The proxy section in .lerd.yaml is mutually exclusive with container: (a site is one or the other, and lerd check rejects setting both).

Field	Required	Default	Description
command	no		Dev command lerd supervises, e.g. npm run start:dev, python manage.py runserver, bin/rails server. Empty means proxy-only: you run the server yourself and lerd only wires the proxy.
port	yes		Port the dev server listens on. lerd injects this and proxies to it.
ssl	no	false	Set to true if the dev server serves HTTPS on its port (nginx proxies via https:// with proxy_ssl_verify off).
port_env_key	no	PORT	Environment variable the port is injected as. Most servers read PORT; set this if yours uses a different name.

Ports

For Node projects the port is auto-assigned: lerd init starts from a default and walks up to the first free port, skipping any port another host-proxy site reserves and any port already bound on the host (so it never silently collides with a lerd service, for example gotenberg on 3000). A port named explicitly in the command is respected and reused. For hand-written configs, set port to whatever your server listens on.

Lerd sets both sides of the contract: it injects the chosen port via PORT (or port_env_key) so a server that honours it binds there, and points nginx at the same port. It does not probe the live socket, so a server that ignores the env var and hardcodes a different port will not be reached. For those, name the port directly in the command (for example vite --port 5173 --strictPort, or runserver 0.0.0.0:8000) so both sides agree.

Vite

Vite checks the request's Host header against its allowedHosts list and answers anything else with 403 Blocked request. Because nginx proxies with the site domain as the Host, a default Vite project returns 403 through the lerd proxy until you allow the domain. Add it to server.allowedHosts in vite.config (or set allowedHosts: true). lerd init prints this reminder when it detects a Vite dev command.

Lifecycle

The dev server is the site's main process, not a togglable worker. Its health drives the site's running indicator, and its lifecycle follows the site:

• lerd link and lerd unpause start it.
• lerd pause stops it (and replaces the vhost with a landing page).
• lerd restart restarts it.
• lerd unlink stops it and removes its unit.

If it dies it is restarted automatically (Restart=always), and lerd's worker-heal pass recovers it if it ever gets stuck, while leaving paused sites alone. Because pause already stops it, there is deliberately no separate start/stop toggle for the dev server in the dashboard.

The dashboard shows a Proxy badge with the port (mirroring the container badge custom-container sites get), and the dev server's journal is available under a read-only Dev Server logs tab. From the CLI:

journalctl --user -u lerd-app-<site> -f

Trust and consent

A host-proxy dev server runs your project's command directly on the host (as a systemd --user unit on Linux, launchd on macOS), outside any container. Because the command can come from a project's committed .lerd.yaml, lerd will not silently supervise a command you have not agreed to run. Three gates enforce this:

• Explicit setup only. A dev-server unit is only ever created by an explicit action: lerd init, lerd link, or clicking Link in the dashboard. Nothing is installed just because a folder appears in a parked directory.
• Command confirmation. When you lerd link a project whose .lerd.yaml already carries a proxy: block you did not author through the wizard, lerd prints the exact command and asks before installing and starting it. Re-linking with the same approved command, choosing it in the lerd init wizard, clicking Link in the dashboard, or passing lerd link --yes all count as consent and skip the prompt. A non-interactive lerd link with an unapproved command is refused rather than run blindly.
• Drift protection. lerd records the approved command in its site registry. If .lerd.yaml's dev command later changes (for example after a git pull), lerd start and boot restore will not auto-run the new command; they warn and wait for you to lerd link again to review and approve it.

Two global settings in config.yaml tune this (both default to the safe value, so existing installs are unaffected):

host_proxy:
  disabled: false           # set true to refuse all host-proxy dev servers
  skip_confirmation: false  # set true to link without the confirmation prompt

Note that this gate is about consent, not sandboxing: a dev server you approve runs with your full user privileges, exactly as if you had run it in a terminal. Only link projects you trust, the same way you would before running npm run dev or npm install on them.

Env

A host-proxy app runs on the host, off the podman bridge, so it can't resolve container DNS names like lerd-postgres. lerd env rewrites service connections accordingly: any lerd-<name> host, whether bare (DB_HOST=lerd-postgres) or embedded in a URL (MONGO_DSN=...@lerd-mongo:27017/db), becomes 127.0.0.1, and the port is remapped from the container port to the service's published host port (so mariadb's 3306 becomes 3411 while redis stays 6379).

lerd env

Run this after linking so the app can reach postgres, redis, and friends on loopback. lerd env is geared to the common .env conventions; if your stack reads connection settings from somewhere else, point it at 127.0.0.1 and the service's published host port yourself.

Services

Add services in .lerd.yaml exactly as for any other site. They run as lerd-managed containers and publish on the host's loopback interface, which is where lerd env points the app.

proxy:
  command: npm run start:dev
  port: 3000
services:
  - postgres
  - redis

HTTPS

lerd secure and lerd unsecure work with host-proxy sites. nginx terminates TLS and proxies plain HTTP to the dev server.

If the dev server serves HTTPS on its own port, set ssl: true under proxy: so nginx proxies via https:// and skips certificate verification.

Proxy-only mode

Leave command empty (or unset) to run the server yourself. Lerd only wires the nginx vhost to the configured port and supervises nothing:

proxy:
  port: 3000

Start your server however you like; nginx proxies the domain to it.

Worktrees

Git worktrees of a host-proxy site each run their own dev server from the worktree checkout, mirroring the parent's command on their own auto-assigned port, behind the worktree domain (branch.site.test) using the parent's wildcard certificate for HTTPS. Add one from the dashboard's worktree modal or with git worktree add; lerd detects it and wires the per-worktree dev server automatically. The modal omits the assets build step for host-proxy sites since the dev server runs continuously.

Database isolation and cloning work for host-proxy worktrees: lerd clones the parent database into a per-worktree database and repoints the worktree's .env. Migrations are never run as part of isolation, the clone already carries the schema, so there is no need for lerd to know your migration command. If you isolate with an empty schema instead of cloning, run your own migration command in the worktree.

CLI commands

Command	Description
lerd init	Detect a Node project and run the host-proxy wizard
lerd link	Start the dev server and generate the proxy vhost
lerd unlink	Stop the dev server, remove its unit and vhost
lerd env	Wire service connections to loopback for the host app
lerd secure / lerd unsecure	Toggle HTTPS
lerd pause / lerd unpause	Pause/resume the site and dev server
lerd restart	Restart the dev server