Configuring the "Run" Button

A file named .replit can be added to any repl in order to customize the behavior of the "Run" button. Written in toml, a .replit file looks something like:

run = "<run command here>"
language = "<repl language>" # optional

In the snippet above, run is a string which will be executed in the shell whenever you hit the "Run" button. The language helps the IDE understand how to provide features like packaging and code intelligence. This is normally configured for you when you clone from a Git repository.

Here is an example of a repl using .replit to print "hello world" instead of running the code:

Configuring a Cloned Repl

When you clone a repository without a .replit file, we automatically show the visual .replit editor:

This will automatically create the .replit file and make it possible to customize how the repl will run. You can use the shell to run any command and then set the "Run" button once you've decided what it should do. Clicking "done" will finalize the repl's configuration and close the visual editor. It's always possible to make changes later by visiting the .replit file from the filetree. Adding .replit to a repository makes cloning fast with no configuration necessary.

Other Configuration

The .replit file can also provide other configuration hints. The full specification is provided below:

• run: Command that is executed when the run button is clicked
• language: Reserved
• onBoot: Command that is executed once when the repl first starts up
• packager.afterInstall: Command that is executed after a new package is installed
• packager.ignoredPaths: List of paths to ignore while attempting to guess packages (More about installing packages)
• packager.ignoredPackages: List of modules to never attempt to guess a package for, when installing packages (More about installing packages)

Example .replit File

run="python main.py"
language="python3"
onBoot="echo Booting up!"

[packager]
afterInstall="date >> package_install_log"
ignoredPaths=[".git"]
ignoredPackages=["twitter", "discord"]

HTML

For HTML projects, you can keep the run command empty and we will serve the project for you automatically. As per web standards, the entrypoint file is index.html. If you want to serve a different file, you can roll your own webserver in one of the languages that we support.

We created an example for you in NodeJS that serves foo.html instead of index.html. Otherwise it works like any other HTML project.