lively.next is a personal programming kit. It emphasizes liveness, directness, and interactivity.
It combines rich live programming capabilities, in the spirit of Smalltalk, with a graphical direct manipulation workflow from current design tools. It seamlessly bridges these two, allowing for rapid prototyping and efficient collaboration.
We aim to bring you an innovative programming experience while building an integrated system that brings designer and programmers together.
lively_working.mp4
Warning
lively.next is beta software and under continuous development.
You are very welcome to play with it! But please be aware, that there are no guarantees regarding the stability of APIs yet.
You need to install lively.next on your system.
Tip
If you want to change files outside of lively (i.e., in a normal editor), while still having the changes be available in lively when opening the file, you'll need to install entr from its repository. Usually, when working inside of lively.next, this will not be an issue, but it can be handy when working heavily on the core of lively. This feature works semi-reliable at the moment. If you are interested in this and would like to help debug this, please reach out!
Currently, MacOS, Linux, and the Linux Subsystem for Windows are supported. Make sure you have the following software installed:
node.js v24.20.0git.bun v1.4.2rustviarustup(this also installscargo)
The supported toolchain uses Node.js 24.20.0 and Bun 1.4.2. Bun installs dependencies; Node runs the server.
For some more advanced development operations (such as bulk testing from the command line and spell checking inside of lively.next), you will also need
sedorgsedon MacOsssornetstaton MacOsperlpython3withsultaninstalledbrotliaspell.
Tip
If you want to change files outside of lively (i.e., in a normal editor), while still having the changes be available in lively when opening the file, you'll need to install entr from its repository. Usually, when working inside of lively.next, this will not be an issue, but it can be handy when working heavily on the core of lively. This feature works semi-reliable at the moment. If you are interested in this and would like to help debug this, please reach out!
If you are on macOS, install the required tooling first:
xcode-select --install curl -fsSL https://bun.sh/install | bash -s "bun-v1.4.2" curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://sh.rustup.rs | sh
After that, close the terminal, open a new one, and verify:
bun --version rustc --version cargo --version
- Clone this repository and run the
install.shscript. This will install the necessary dependencies and build some bundles that are necessary for the bootstrapping process oflively.next. Please note, that this process will take a few minutes. - Run the
start.shscript. - Lively will now be running on computer and be accessible at http://localhost:9011.
Tip
You can use start.sh with a --debug or -d flag to inspect the lively server with a node debugger. You can also use --port=<PORT> or -p <PORT> to specify on which port the lively server should run.
Usually, running start.sh will now be enough to get you going again.
install.sh consumes the committed bun.lock for installed packages. Browser import maps are dynamically generated through JSPM and cached in each package's hidden, Git-ignored .cachedImportMap.json. Missing caches and dependency manifest changes regenerate the maps automatically. Browser module content is materialized into esm_cache for desktop and release builds.
To update a dependency intentionally, run bun add <package>@<version> from its owning workspace, then bun run update:browser-import-maps <workspace> and bun run cache:browser-dependencies. Review and commit the changed manifest and Bun lock; generated maps remain untracked.
For a user project, run node lively.project/package-install.mjs local_projects/<name> --update once to create or update its own lock and explicit local source links. Subsequent installs and project builds consume that lock. Core source links are recorded in lively.localDependencies; they do not modify the core dependency lock.
When upgrading from the old flatn installation, preserve any edited files in custom-npm-modules or lively.next-node_modules as local projects before reinstalling. The new installation does not use those directories. Verify startup and your projects before removing them. Do not copy old dependency trees into node_modules.
When a new version of lively.next is available, the Version Indicator in the lower-left corner will look like this:
Pressing will start the update process, automatically restart the server and prompt you to reload your lively session. Please make sure to save all your progress before updating.
Manually updating can be done by pulling the latest version and just executing install.sh again. The server needs to be restarted afterwards and you need to reload your lively session.
Caution
Please note, that these instructions currently are not recommended for openly deploying lively.next in the web!
Important
This does not mean that you cannot deploy applications built with lively.next. Of course, frozen applications can be served via any hoster!
However, making a development server publicly available is highly discouraged, as it comes with unfiltered access to the local file system and shell, among other things.
We provide all information necessary to start developing in lively.next on our website. We recommend this as an entry point for all users.
Some more hints and documentation can be found in the project wiki. Note, that these are much less polished than the contents provided on the website.
Source-Code documentation (only relevant for developers and most useful for those who want to contribute to the lively.next core) can be found here.
This project is MIT licensed.