· NGSRV Team

How to share a Express dev server online

You finished a feature branch and someone off your machine needs to click through it. Deploying a staging build works, but it is slow. Running node server.js and tunneling it is faster.

Any port works. Point ngsrv at whatever app.listen() uses.

Steps

# 1. Start Express
node server.js

# 2. In another terminal, tunnel the port
ngsrv http 3000

Most setups work without extra config.

Reserve a URL that does not change

ngsrv http 3000 --subdomain express-preview

Hand that link to QA or a client. Same URL after you restart the tunnel.

Declarative config for teams

Check a ngsrv.yml into the repo so everyone runs the same tunnel names:

tunnels:
  - name: express
    port: 3000
    subdomain: express-preview

Then ngsrv run.