Section 2 - Start the local preview

The local preview runs a private copy of the docs site on your computer. It lets you review the rendered page in your browser instead of reading raw Markdown.

Start the preview before you create a branch or begin authoring. Leave the terminal running while you work.

Start The Preview

1. In VS Code, open the service_docs folder.

2. Open a terminal with Terminal > New Terminal.

3. Look at the command prompt.

   • If the prompt ends with service_docs, stay where you are.
   • If the prompt is in another folder, change to the repository root first.

4. Start the Troubleshooting preview by typing in npm run dev:troubleshooting.

   The terminal should show the local preview URL (in the example below, the local preview URL is shown in blue below the green astro box):

   

5. In your browser, open the URL shown in the terminal. In the example above, it is:

   http://localhost:4321/

   The browser should show the local docs site:

   

6. Stop the server any time by typing Ctrl+C in the terminal.

If The Preview Does Not Start

If the preview browser doesn’t work, paste a screenshot of the error in Codex and ask it to resolve the error. Common fixes are:

• install dependencies with npm ci from the service_docs folder
• stop a duplicate server that is already using the port
• re-run npm run dev:troubleshooting
• open the exact URL shown in the terminal instead of assuming the port is 4321

You can ask Codex:

Please start the local docs preview for this repo.
If the usual port is already in use, tell me the URL I should open.
Keep the server running while I review the page.

If Codex cannot keep the server running in your setup, ask it for the exact command to run in the VS Code terminal.

For common local-preview hiccups, see Tips and tricks.

When the preview is running, continue to Start each change safely.