Nov 29, 2022

Fix Netlify Dev's 'Multiple possible start commands found' issue

Netlify Dev attempts to guess what framework your project is using and what commands it should run in development.

$ netlify dev

◈ Netlify Dev ◈
◈ Ignored general context env var: LANG (defined in process)
◈ Ignored general context env var: LC_ALL (defined in process)
? Multiple possible start commands found (Use arrow keys or type to search)
❯ [Astro] 'npm run dev'
  [Svelte] 'npm run dev'
  [Svelte] 'npm run build'

Reading the Netlify documentation, it seems like you should be able to resolve this by adding a [dev] section to your netlify.toml file.

<!-- This doesn't work -->
[dev]
    command = "npm run dev"

However, that alone does not work. There is a “closed” issued that describes the behavior, but essentially the Netlify CLI doesn’t read the command even though you’ve set it.

Thankfully, someone contributed an actual solution that only requires a few more details:

[dev]
    command = "npm run dev"
    framework = "#custom"
    targetPort = 3000

framework needs to be set to "#custom" and you need to manually set the port that your dev server typically runs on. With Astro, that is port 3000.

With that configured, everything works as expected:

$ npx netlify dev

◈ Netlify Dev ◈
◈ Ignored general context env var: LANG (defined in process)
◈ Ignored general context env var: LC_ALL (defined in process)
◈ Setting up local development server

Happy coding!

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