Building & Web UI

Running bitforge inside a workspace starts a local web server and, unless you ask for a build, warms up the default image. The server streams BitBake output so you can launch and monitor builds from your browser.

Starting BitForge

cd my-distro
bitforge

On start BitForge:

• Loads BitForge.toml and ensures the project layout exists.
• Makes sure BitBake and the configured sources are present.
• Refreshes conf/local.conf and conf/bblayers.conf.
• Records a git revision and starts the web server.

The console prints the URL to open, e.g. BitForge is running at http://0.0.0.0:PORT.

Note

The default port is chosen automatically. Pin a fixed host and port in the [server] section of BitForge.toml — see Configuration.

Running a build

Start a build from the CLI by naming an image or target:

bitforge --build core-image-minimal

If you omit the target, BitForge uses the [default] image from the manifest:

[default]
image = "core-image-minimal"

bitforge --build

Caution

With no target on the command line and no [default] image configured, the build cannot start. Set a default image or pass one explicitly.

You can also start builds from the web UI once the server is running — the same build engine drives both.

Stopping

Press Ctrl+C to shut down gracefully; BitForge waits for the configured grace period to let in-flight work settle. Press Ctrl+C again to force an immediate exit.

Updating BitForge

BitForge updates itself in place from GitHub releases:

bitforge --update

Add --beta to take the latest pre-release instead of the newest stable build:

bitforge --update --beta

The updater downloads the matching release asset, replaces the running binary and reports the new version. It only replaces the binary when the release is newer than what you have installed.

Tip

--update requires curl. To point at a fork, set BITFORGE_REPO=owner/name before running the command.