Getting Started¶

Prerequisites¶

Python 3.11+ on Windows (primary development platform)
A virtualenv at venv/ in the repo root

Install¶

python -m venv venv
venv\Scripts\python -m pip install -r requirements.txt

Run the studio dashboard¶

The web app is FastAPI + Jinja2 + HTMX, served by Uvicorn on port 8080:

venv\Scripts\python app\main.py

Then open http://localhost:8080. For a throwaway preview instance on another port (leaving 8080 untouched):

cd app
..\venv\Scripts\python -m uvicorn app.main:app --port 8091

Auto-reload is off on purpose

reload=False is intentional — several routes spawn asyncio subprocesses (Blender, ffmpeg, render jobs) that do not survive the reloader's process model on Windows. Restart the server manually after code changes.

Configuration¶

Alchemy loads studio and project configuration from alchemy.json on disk:

from alc.config import AlchemyConfig
CFG = AlchemyConfig().load()   # singleton, loaded once at startup

CFG describes the company, its projects, filesystem roots, and the cookbook location.

Run the tests¶

venv\Scripts\python -m pytest tests

Build these docs¶

venv\Scripts\python -m pip install -r requirements-docs.txt
venv\Scripts\python -m mkdocs serve    # live-reload at http://localhost:8000
venv\Scripts\python -m mkdocs build    # static site into site/