Site preview

Ctrl+E opens the site preview in the right panel. Zeku starts your project’s own dev server, astro dev, and shows the page for the post you’re editing, with your theme, your components, and your plugins. It refreshes each time Zeku saves. With a file open that isn’t a page, like astro.config.mjs, a stylesheet or an image, the preview stays on the last page it showed, which your dev server updates as you edit.

The first start can take a minute or more when your dev command installs packages or runs astro check first. Zeku waits as long as the server is still working and shows its latest line while it does. If the server exits or goes quiet, the preview says which, with its log.

Zeku runs the dev server with your project’s package manager, pnpm, npm, Yarn, or Bun, exactly as you would run it in a terminal. It runs your dev script, or, when package.json has none, the script that runs astro dev, such as start. It uses the one your package.json names in packageManager, or else the one your lockfile belongs to, and with lockfiles for more than one, the first whose package manager is installed. If that one isn’t installed on your computer, choose another under Package manager in Settings > Content. The choice is saved on your computer only, and Update field types uses it too.

What it needs

• Node.js, and your project’s package manager.
• Your project’s dependencies, installed once with pnpm install, npm install, or the equivalent.

Writing and publishing work without any of these. Only the preview needs them.

Package manager not found

If Zeku says it can’t find pnpm or npm, but pnpm --version works in your terminal, quit Zeku and open it again. On a Mac, Zeku reads your shell’s PATH when it starts. If the command doesn’t work in the terminal either, install Node.js and your package manager first, for example with brew install node pnpm, or choose a package manager you already have in Settings > Content. See Troubleshooting.

The dev server stops when you close the project or quit Zeku.