Docs · Using Orbit

Development server manager

Run, stop, and restart your development servers from Orbit, watch their live output in a built-in terminal, and open the localhost URLs they print.

Orbit can keep the long-running commands you use every day — dev servers, watchers, backends — in one place. The Servers view starts, stops, and restarts them for you, streams their output into a built-in terminal, and detects the localhost URLs they print so you can open them with one click.

Adding a server

Open the Servers view and add a project. You can pick one of the projects Orbit already scanned — search by name, path, or technology — or browse to any folder. Then give it a display name and the command to run.

1
Choose a project
Select one of your scanned projects, or use Browse to pick any directory on disk.
2
Name it
Give the server a friendly name. It defaults to the selected project's name and can be edited.
3
Enter the command
Type the command line to run, for example npm run dev, bun dev, or pnpm start.

The command is stored exactly as you enter it and is tokenized in the main process — it is never run through a shell. Configurations persist in a small servers.json file under the app's user-data directory and are restored the next time you open Orbit.

Controlling a server

Action	What it does
Start	Spawns the command in its project directory and begins streaming output.
Stop	Stops the process and its whole process tree.
Restart	Stops the server if it is running, then starts it again.
Open URL	Opens a detected localhost URL in your default browser.
Clear	Empties the terminal buffer for that server.

Statuses

Each server shows its live state, its process id while running, and — when it stops — the exit code or signal.

Status	Meaning
starting	The process has been spawned and is coming up.
running	The process is live. Detected URLs and the start time are shown.
stopping	Orbit is shutting the process tree down.
stopped	The process is not running. This is the initial state.
failed	The server could not start, or exited unexpectedly. The error is shown.

Live output

Output streams into a built-in terminal as it is produced, with stdout, stderr, and system messages distinguished.
The buffer is bounded per server, so a chatty process never grows memory without limit.
Any localhost URL printed by the server is detected and listed as a clickable button that opens in your browser.
Use Clear to start from a clean view when the output gets noisy.

Process handling and safety

Whole process tree — stopping a server terminates its child processes too, so a dev server does not leave orphans behind.
No shell — commands are tokenized and spawned with shell: false, so a saved command can never be interpreted as shell syntax.
No auto-start — servers stay stopped until you start them, and unexpected exits are reported with their code rather than failing silently.
Persisted configuration — servers are saved between sessions; runtime state and logs are not.

Part of the Orbit documentation · v1.1.0

Adding a server

Choose a project

Select one of your scanned projects, or use Browse to pick any directory on disk.

Name it

Give the server a friendly name. It defaults to the selected project's name and can be edited.

Enter the command

Type the command line to run, for example npm run dev, bun dev, or pnpm start.