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Getting Started

docs/local-cre/getting-started/index.md

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Getting Started

This page gives you the shortest path from a clean checkout to a running Local CRE environment and a local smoke-test run.

Prerequisites

For the standard Docker-based flow, Local CRE expects:

  • Docker installed and running
  • access to required images through AWS SSO or direct repository access
  • gh authenticated if you build images that need private plugin access
  • go available locally

The existing environment setup flow is still the canonical prerequisite bootstrap:

bash
cd core/scripts/cre/environment
go run . env setup

env setup is driven by configs/setup.toml and can also be run with:

bash
go run . env setup --config configs/setup.toml --no-prompt

If you need to rebuild or repull prerequisites, env setup also supports --purge. Billing assets can be included with --with-billing.

Quickstart

Start the default Local CRE stack:

bash
cd core/scripts/cre/environment
go run . env start --auto-setup

If you need setup/startup to pull managed images from ECR, provide both registries:

bash
MAIN_AWS_ECR=<main-registry> SDLC_AWS_ECR=<sdlc-registry> go run . env start --auto-setup

Deploy a first workflow:

bash
go run . env workflow deploy -w ./examples/workflows/v2/cron/main.go --compile -n cron_example

The environment command writes Local CRE state to the repo-local state file, which is what the test helpers later consume.

Common Startup Variants

Start with the example workflow:

bash
go run . env start --with-example

Start with Beholder:

bash
go run . env start --with-beholder

Start against v1 contracts:

bash
go run . env start --with-contracts-version v1

Set extra gateway ports when your workflow needs outbound access to local services:

bash
go run . env start --extra-allowed-gateway-ports 8080,8171

First Smoke Test Run

Once the environment is up, run the CRE smoke package:

bash
go test ./system-tests/tests/smoke/cre -timeout 20m -run '^Test_CRE_'

For the default smoke-test flow, start Local CRE without --with-beholder. Chip Router owns ingress on 50051, and tests register downstream subscribers behind the router (test sink by default, Beholder for Beholder-backed scenarios).

Enable Beholder when:

  • you are running Beholder-specific tests
  • you intentionally need the Beholder stack for debugging
  • you want to inspect workflow events in the Beholder stack during debugging

The smoke tests default to the capability-enabled topology when you do not override CTF_CONFIGS, and the test helpers can start Local CRE automatically if the state file does not exist yet.

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