Local development

This guide explains how to test Honeydeck locally before it is published to npm.

Prerequisites

Honeydeck is currently developed and tested with Node 26+.

node --version

From the Honeydeck repository:

pnpm install
pnpm run dev

Root pnpm run dev starts the private showcase deck package and the docs site together.

To run only the showcase deck:

pnpm --filter @honeydeck/showcase run dev

To demo the starter deck generated by honeydeck init, run:

pnpm --filter @honeydeck/honeydeck run dev

That points at the real starter template files through the source CLI:

node --import tsx ./src/cli/index.ts dev --deck src/cli/templates/starter/deck.mdx

From the Honeydeck package directory:

cd packages/honeydeck
npm link

Then from any folder:

honeydeck --help
honeydeck init --name demo-deck --skip-install

npm link exposes the local honeydeck command, but it does not publish Honeydeck to the npm registry.

Until Honeydeck is published, pnpm install inside a generated project may fail with:

404 Not Found - GET https://registry.npmjs.org/@honeydeck%2fhoneydeck - Not found

This happens because the generated project depends on @honeydeck/honeydeck, but npm cannot find it in the public registry yet.

For local testing, link the local Honeydeck package into the generated project:

cd /path/to/generated-project
npm link @honeydeck/honeydeck
pnpm install
pnpm run dev

If the global link does not exist yet, create it first from the Honeydeck package directory:

cd /path/to/honeydeck/packages/honeydeck
npm link

You can also link the package folder directly without a global link step:

cd /path/to/generated-project
npm link /path/to/honeydeck/packages/honeydeck
pnpm install
pnpm run dev

npm link keeps the generated project wired to your local checkout. Changes in the Honeydeck package are picked up without publishing to npm.