Set up DevSpace manual QA

Use the current checkout or worktree. DevSpace's repo-local QA state lives in .devspace-dev/ and should be used instead of the user's normal DevSpace state.

Prepare the checkout

If this checkout has not been initialized for QA yet:

pnpm dev:seed

dev:seed forks the user's current DevSpace config, auth, local skills/agents, and SQLite state into this checkout's .devspace-dev/ directory.

For ChatGPT app, widget, CSS, or icon changes, build the UI assets before testing:

pnpm build:app

The source server serves UI assets from dist/ui, not directly from src/ui.

Run QA

Start the source server from this checkout with:

pnpm dev

It uses .devspace-dev/config and runs the source server under tsx watch, so server-side TypeScript changes reload automatically. Frontend changes still need another pnpm build:app.

The seeded QA state usually lets ChatGPT keep using the existing connector and tunnel while switching from the installed DevSpace server to this checkout's server.

For UI work, trigger a fresh tool result after rebuilding so ChatGPT loads the new hashed Vite assets.

Reset the QA snapshot

Only when a fresh fork of the normal DevSpace state is needed:

pnpm dev:reset

Run this with pnpm dev stopped, then start pnpm dev again so the replaced snapshot is loaded. If the user's normal installation uses a custom DEVSPACE_CONFIG_DIR, preserve it while running dev:seed or dev:reset.