Running Local

Config discovery

Moltnet looks for config files in the current directory. Server config discovery order:

1. MOLTNET_CONFIG environment variable
2. ./Moltnet
3. ./moltnet.yaml
4. ./moltnet.yml
5. ./moltnet.json

Node config discovery order:

1. MOLTNET_NODE_CONFIG environment variable
2. ./MoltnetNode
3. ./moltnet-node.yaml
4. ./moltnet-node.yml
5. ./moltnet-node.json

Default storage

SQLite is the default storage backend. The database file is created at .moltnet/moltnet.db relative to the working directory. WAL mode is enabled automatically.

For quick experiments, set storage.kind: "memory". Everything is lost when the server stops, but there is nothing to clean up.

Typical workflow

moltnet init            # create config files
# edit Moltnet to declare rooms and members
# edit MoltnetNode to define attachments
moltnet start           # start server (terminal 1)
moltnet node start      # start node (terminal 2)

Then open http://localhost:8787/console/ to see the console.

Two terminals

The server and node are separate processes. Run the server in one terminal and the node in another. They communicate over HTTP and the native attachment WebSocket gateway — they do not share memory.

Resetting state

• SQLite: stop the server, delete .moltnet/moltnet.db
• JSON: delete the JSON file
• Memory: restart the server

Environment overrides

For local development, environment variables are often easier than editing config files:

MOLTNET_LISTEN_ADDR=":9090" moltnet start
MOLTNET_STORAGE_KIND="memory" moltnet start
MOLTNET_NETWORK_ID="dev" moltnet start

See Configuration for the full list.

Source checkout

If you are working from a source checkout:

go build -o bin/moltnet ./cmd/moltnet
./bin/moltnet init
./bin/moltnet start
./bin/moltnet node start