Starter and CLI Options

Useful webui starter modes and command-line entry points.

The normal entry points are webui.sh on Linux/WSL and webui.bat on Windows.

Starter options

--update      update a Git checkout and refresh the environment
--dev         run with frontend development tooling
--llm         install the optional local-model environment (once, not on every start)
--skip-build  start without rebuilding the frontend
--help        print the starter's own notes

--update is only for a Git checkout. It runs git pull --ff-only, refreshes the application environment and built frontend when needed, then starts Livebound. A fast-forward-only pull does not overwrite local Git work: if Git cannot update safely, the starter stops instead. Because the checkout remains in the same application folder, its installation-local .livebound/config.json remains in place and continues to select the same data directory.

An extracted release ZIP has no Git history and should be updated by downloading and starting the newer ZIP. The newly extracted folder is a separate installation, so its first start asks which data directory to use. See Installation for the complete ZIP and Git update steps.

Anything the starter does not recognise is passed on to the application, so ./webui.sh --port 9000 --no-browser works — both belong to the serve command below. The one exception is --dev, where the starter passes --no-browser itself because the frontend development server provides the interface.

Local starter settings can be placed in webui.settings.sh or webui.settings.bat next to the starter. They set PYTHON, VENV_DIR and COMMANDLINE_ARGS — the interpreter to use, where the environment lives, and arguments to add to every start.

Backend CLI

The Python package exposes five commands:

serve     start the server (--port, --no-browser, --reload)
scan      walk every source folder once
backup    back the database up, or list existing backups
resume    clean up interrupted runs and report
starter   evaluate platform starter decisions

For ordinary use, prefer the browser UI and the starter scripts. Reach for the CLI when documentation or troubleshooting specifically calls for it.