Lowcoder frontend
How to contribute
Start a local backend server
Use prebuilt docker image
Simply run the below command to start a backend server.
docker run -d --name lowcoder -p 3000:3000 -v "$PWD/stacks:/lowcoder-stacks" lowcoderorg/lowcoder-ce
For more information, view our docs
Build Docker image from source
- Check out the source code and change to source dir.
- Use the command below to build a Docker image :
docker build -f ./deploy/docker/Dockerfile -t lowcoder-dev .
- Start
docker run -d --name lowcoder-dev -p 3000:3000 -v "$PWD/stacks:/lowcoder-stacks" lowcoder-dev
Start develop
- Check out source code.
- Change to /client dir in the source dir.
cd client
- Run yarn to install dependencies.
yarn install
- Start dev server:
LOWCODER_API_SERVICE_URL=http://localhost:3000 yarn start
- After dev server starts successfully, it will be automatically opened in the default browser.
Before submitting a pull request
In addition, before submitting a pull request, please make sure the following is done:
- If you’ve fixed a bug or added code that should be tested and add unit test suite.
- Run test and ensure all test suites pass.
yarn test
- If you add new dependency, use the yarn worspace tool to make sure yarn.lock is also updated.
yarn workspace lowcoder <package name>
Developing and publishung UI components for Lowcoder
- Initialization
Project initiation
yarn create Lowcoder-plugin <your plugin name>
Go to the project root
cd my-plugin
Start the development environment
yarn start
After executing yarn start, the browser is automatically opened and you enter the component development environment. Please find more information in our docs
- Export components
To export all the components, use src/index.ts, for example:
import HelloWorldComp from "./HelloWorldComp";
export default {
hello_world: HelloWorldComp,
};
import HelloWorldComp from "./HelloWorldComp";
- Publish plugins
When you finish developing and testing the plugin, you can publish it into the npm registry. Login in to the npm registry locally, and then execute the following command:
yarn build --publish
You can check a code demo here: Code Demo on Github
Deployment of the Lowcoder Frontend to Netlify (Local Build Flow)
⚙️ Prerequisites
- Node.js & Yarn installed
- Netlify CLI installed:
npm install -g netlify-cli
- Netlify CLI authenticated:
netlify login
- The project is linked to the correct Netlify site:
cd client
netlify link
🛠 Setup netlify.toml (only once)
Inside the client/ folder, create or update netlify.toml:
[build]
base = "client"
command = "yarn workspace lowcoder build"
publish = "client/packages/lowcoder/build"
This ensures Netlify uses the correct build and publish paths when building locally.
🚀 Deployment Steps
1️⃣ Navigate into the client folder:
cd client
2️⃣ Run local build (with Netlify environment variables injected):
netlify build
3️⃣ Deploy to production:
netlify deploy --prod --dir=packages/lowcoder/build
🔧 Notes
- This local build flow fully honors the environment variables configured in Netlify.
- No build happens on Netlify servers — only the deploy step runs on Netlify.
- This approach avoids Netlify’s build memory limits.