Running it

Local dashboard

The free dashboard on your computer, shared by every Node.js project you run. No account, and your data stays on your machine.

The first app that starts with PeekInside also starts the local hub: a small background process on http://localhost:7335, shared by every app on your machine. Each app appears as its own project, named after its package.json, with live status and port. Switch between projects from the top bar.

How it works#

  • It stays on your machine. Requests and exceptions are stored in ~/.peekinside. The hub keeps the newest 1,000 requests and 500 exceptions of each project, and survives app restarts (nodemon and the like).
  • It starts and stops by itself. Apps start the hub when they need it, and it exits after an hour with no running apps and no open dashboard. Your data stays on disk.
  • It's for development. It records requests made on your machine: localhost and *.localhost, *.test, *.local, private network addresses, Docker service names, and tunnels such as ngrok. When requests reach the app through a public domain, or come from a public address (including through a proxy), the app is running on a server: those requests aren't recorded, and the dashboard says that servers need PeekInside Cloud. Use localhost or a .test domain while developing.
  • It's off on servers by default. Local mode is also off when NODE_ENV is production or test, and in CI. Turn it on anyway with local: true or PEEKINSIDE_LOCAL=1 (server requests are still not recorded), or off with local: false or PEEKINSIDE_LOCAL=0.

The dashboard's interface is loaded from peekinside.dev, so the npm package ships no frontend code. Your request data never goes there: the page reads it straight from the hub on your machine.

Commands#

npx peekinside           # start the hub if needed and print its address
npx peekinside open      # same, then open the dashboard in your browser
npx peekinside status    # running or not, and your projects
npx peekinside stop      # stop it (data stays in ~/.peekinside)
npx peekinside run       # run it in this terminal, with its log

Where data lives#

Default Change it with
Folder ~/.peekinside PEEKINSIDE_HOME
Port 7335 PEEKINSIDE_HUB_PORT
Requests kept per project 1,000 PEEKINSIDE_MAX_REQUESTS
Exceptions kept per project 500 PEEKINSIDE_MAX_EXCEPTIONS

Clear a project's requests or exceptions, or remove the project, from the dashboard. Files in ~/.peekinside are readable only by your user.