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Aspire quickstart

A NetScript workspace is never one process — it is a Fresh app, oRPC services, plugin APIs, background processors, a database, and a cache. Aspire is how we make that whole fleet start with one command, wired together, with a real dashboard from the first run. This page is the shortest path to seeing it; the main Quickstart covers installing the CLI and the scaffold in more detail.

What you get

  • One workspace, one command up. aspire start boots the database, the cache, every service, every plugin API, and every background processor — in dependency order, no docker-compose to babysit.
  • Multi-resource wiring, resolved for you. Connection strings and neighbour endpoints are computed and injected as environment variables before each process starts, so nothing has to discover anything at runtime.
  • The Aspire dashboard. Live resource list, per-process console logs, and distributed traces in one place — aspire start prints its URL and a one-time login token.
  • A TypeScript AppHost — not .NET authoring. The orchestrator entry point is a generated TypeScript program at aspire/apphost.mts, running on an isolated Node runtime inside aspire/ so it never leaks into your Deno workspace. You write no C#.

The commands

Scaffold a workspace, then bring it up. The Aspire layer lives in its own aspire/ folder; restore its SDK modules once, then start:

netscript init my-app --db postgres

cd my-app/aspire
aspire restore   # one-time: downloads the AppHost SDK modules
aspire start     # boots Postgres + Redis + services, prints the dashboard URL

When boot settles, open the dashboard URL aspire start printed (conventionally https://localhost:18888) and paste the login token. Every resource, its logs, and its traces are one click away.

Prefer no orchestration?

Aspire is the default, not a requirement. Scaffold with --no-aspire to skip the orchestration layer entirely — no aspire/ folder, no dashboard — and start the Fresh app directly:

netscript init my-app --db postgres --no-aspire
deno task --cwd apps/dashboard dev

You take over infrastructure and wiring yourself: bring your own Postgres and cache, hand each process its connection strings. When that trade is the right call — and what exactly you give up — is covered in Orchestration with Aspire.

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