internal-dev-workbench

Bootstraps an opinionated 3-pane tmux session for end-to-end Workflow SDK development. Each pane is launched through portless so URLs are stable and worktree-scoped (e.g. https://<branch>.turbopack.localhost), letting multiple worktrees run concurrently without port conflicts. A companion statusline script surfaces the active URLs in Claude Code's prompt.

This is opt-in contributor tooling. The repo's standard dev path (pnpm dev from a workbench, no portless) is unaffected.

Prerequisites

• tmux installed
• portless installed globally (npm i -g portless or via Homebrew). Verify with portless --version.
• Repo bootstrapped: pnpm install && pnpm build. The first run on a fresh worktree must complete both before any dev server can start (the workbench apps depend on built workspace packages — without pnpm build you get MODULE_NOT_FOUND for workflow).
• WORKFLOW_PUBLIC_MANIFEST=1 is required on the dev server when running e2e tests against it (otherwise /.well-known/workflow/v1/manifest.json is gated).

Layout

main-vertical — the dev server takes the left column; the right column stacks the observability UI on top of a scratchpad shell:

+----------------------+--------------------------+
|                      |  PANE_OBS: workflow web  |
|                      |  (observability UI       |
|  PANE_DEV: turbopack |   scoped to the          |
|  (Next.js dev)       |   workbench app)         |
|                      +--------------------------+
|                      |  PANE_SH: zsh scratchpad |
|                      |  (repo root — for build, |
|                      |   tests, e2e, git, etc.) |
+----------------------+--------------------------+

Setup

The session name must match the worktree's portless prefix — the basename of the current branch — so the statusline (and any other tooling that derives the prefix from the branch) can locate it. Always run tmux ls first to confirm there's no pre-existing session with that name; never kill an existing one.

Pane indices in tmux depend on pane-base-index (0 by default, 1 with the common dotfile override). To stay correct under either, capture each pane's ID at split time with -P -F '#{pane_id}' and use those IDs as targets:

REPO=/path/to/workflow--<worktree-suffix>
# Session name = basename of the branch (matches portless's subdomain prefix
# and the statusline's `tmux attach -t <prefix>` indicator). For branch
# `pgp/foo-bar` this resolves to `foo-bar`.
SESSION=$(git -C "$REPO" rev-parse --abbrev-ref HEAD)
SESSION="${SESSION##*/}"

# Create the session and capture the initial pane ID
PANE_DEV=$(tmux new-session -d -s "$SESSION" -c "$REPO" -P -F '#{pane_id}')
PANE_OBS=$(tmux split-window -h -t "$PANE_DEV" -c "$REPO" -P -F '#{pane_id}')
PANE_SH=$(tmux split-window -v -t "$PANE_OBS" -c "$REPO" -P -F '#{pane_id}')
tmux select-layout -t "$SESSION" main-vertical

# Pane DEV (left): Next.js turbopack workbench, with manifest exposed for e2e
tmux send-keys -t "$PANE_DEV" \
  'cd workbench/nextjs-turbopack && WORKFLOW_PUBLIC_MANIFEST=1 portless run --name turbopack pnpm dev' C-m

# Pane OBS (top-right): observability UI scoped to the workbench app
tmux send-keys -t "$PANE_OBS" \
  'cd workbench/nextjs-turbopack && portless run --name workflow-obs sh -c "pnpm workflow web --webPort \$PORT --noBrowser"' C-m

# Pane SH (bottom-right): scratchpad at repo root
tmux send-keys -t "$PANE_SH" 'echo "scratchpad: $(pwd)"' C-m

tmux attach -t "$SESSION"

Once both servers are ready, portless list shows the routes. With portless run, each linked worktree gets a unique branch-prefixed subdomain (e.g. stepflow-test.turbopack.localhost), so multiple worktrees coexist without changing config.

Why each piece

• portless run --name <name> (instead of portless <name> <cmd>): run auto-detects git worktrees and prepends the sanitized branch name as a subdomain. The --name flag overrides the inferred base name while preserving the worktree prefix.
• pnpm workflow web --webPort $PORT --noBrowser (instead of pnpm dev in packages/web): the bundled CLI starts the observability UI configured against the current workbench app, hydrating it with that project's local World data. Running packages/web's own dev script gives you the UI but pointed at nothing.
• sh -c '... --webPort $PORT': portless's auto --port injection only triggers for known frameworks it can detect on the command line. When the command is a CLI wrapper (pnpm workflow web), wrap in sh -c and read $PORT (which portless always sets) explicitly.
• WORKFLOW_PUBLIC_MANIFEST=1 on the dev pane: required for e2e tests to fetch the workflow registry from the dev server.
• -P -F '#{pane_id}': makes the snippet correct regardless of the user's pane-base-index setting (defaults vary across configs).

Claude statusline integration

The skill ships a statusline helper at skills/internal-dev-workbench/statusline.sh that derives the worktree prefix from the current branch and emits a compact line:

 dev  ·   obs  ·   tmux attach -t <worktree-prefix>

The dev / obs labels (Nerd Font rocket / graph glyphs) are OSC 8 hyperlinks — clickable in iTerm2, Kitty, WezTerm, Terminal.app, Ghostty — styled bold + underlined + bright cyan so they read unambiguously as links. The tmux fragment (Nerd Font copy glyph) is bold bright green, signaling "copy this" rather than "click this". It's shown only when a session named exactly the worktree prefix exists, and it's printed as a full ready-to-paste tmux attach -t <prefix> invocation. The font must include Nerd Font glyphs for the icons to render correctly; without them you'll see substitution boxes but the layout still works. Each piece is independent — if portless has no <prefix>.turbopack.localhost route, the dev fragment is omitted, and so on. With nothing to show, the script prints nothing and the statusline stays silent.

Wire it into ~/.claude/settings.json so it works across all sessions and worktrees. Point the path at your primary checkout, not at a worktree — worktrees get deleted, so any path like ~/github/vercel/workflow--<branch>/... will break the day you remove that worktree:

{
  "statusLine": {
    "type": "command",
    "command": "$HOME/github/vercel/workflow/skills/internal-dev-workbench/statusline.sh"
  }
}

Adjust the prefix if your main checkout lives elsewhere. The script itself is worktree-aware: it reads Claude's workspace.current_dir from stdin to derive the current branch, so the same script invocation from ~/github/vercel/workflow/... correctly surfaces routes for whichever worktree the Claude session is running in.

Output rules:

• Nothing to show (no matching portless route, no matching tmux session) → empty output.
• Each piece appears independently — start a server but no tmux session and you'll see just the dev/obs fragments; the reverse shows just the tmux fragment.
• No git context but routes exist → falls back to the first matching turbopack/workflow-obs route, no tmux indicator.

If you already use a statusline and want to append the internal-dev-workbench info, run the helper and concatenate in your existing wrapper script instead of replacing command outright.

Restarting after editing workflow files

The workflow manifest is built at dev-server startup. New workflows or steps added to workbench/example/workflows/*.ts (and their symlinks in other workbenches) do not appear at runtime — even with HMR — until the dev server restarts.

tmux send-keys -t "$PANE_DEV" C-c
# Wait for the prompt to return
tmux send-keys -t "$PANE_DEV" \
  'cd workbench/nextjs-turbopack && WORKFLOW_PUBLIC_MANIFEST=1 portless run --name turbopack pnpm dev' C-m

Verify the new workflow is registered (use the portless-assigned local port from portless list, or the .localhost URL with the trusted CA):

/usr/bin/curl -s "$(portless get turbopack)/.well-known/workflow/v1/manifest.json" \
  | grep -o '<your-new-workflow>'

NODE_EXTRA_CA_CERTS=/tmp/portless/ca.pem is needed for Node clients hitting the HTTPS URL outside of portless-managed children. Browsers are fine after portless trust.

Running e2e tests against this session

From the scratchpad pane. Use the portless-assigned local port to bypass TLS for the test runner:

PORT=$(portless list | awk '/turbopack/ {n=split($3,a,":"); print a[n]; exit}')
DEPLOYMENT_URL="http://localhost:$PORT" APP_NAME="nextjs-turbopack" \
  pnpm vitest run packages/core/e2e/e2e.test.ts -t "<test name>"

Or use the portless URL with the CA trust:

NODE_EXTRA_CA_CERTS=/tmp/portless/ca.pem \
  DEPLOYMENT_URL="$(portless get turbopack)" APP_NAME="nextjs-turbopack" \
  pnpm vitest run packages/core/e2e/e2e.test.ts -t "<test name>"

Teardown

tmux kill-session -t "$SESSION"

Portless removes routes when each child process exits (Ctrl+C the panes first if you want a clean portless list). The proxy itself keeps running for other sessions; stop it explicitly with portless proxy stop if needed.

Troubleshooting

• MODULE_NOT_FOUND: 'workflow' in the dev pane — workspace packages haven't been built. Run pnpm build from the repo root, then restart the pane.
• Observability UI shows no runs — verify the obs pane was started from inside workbench/nextjs-turbopack (or whichever workbench you want to inspect). The CLI reads the local World from the current working directory.
• react-router on :5173 instead of the portless port — happens when the obs pane uses pnpm dev from packages/web. Switch to the pnpm workflow web --webPort $PORT form above.
• Source-map warning on startup (failed to read input source map ... packages/serde/dist/index.js.map) — benign; doesn't block dev.
• Stale workflow registration after editing 99_e2e.ts — restart the dev pane; HMR doesn't rebuild the manifest.
• Statusline shows nothing — confirm portless list has at least one matching route, the path in settings.json is absolute, and the script is executable (chmod +x).