artifact-cli

A CLI tool for previewing React components in isolated sandboxed environments using Sandpack.

Features

• 🚀 Instant Previews - Preview any React component with a single command
• 🔄 Hot Reload - Update previews without restarting the server
• 🎯 Isolation - Each artifact runs in its own server instance
• 📦 Auto Dependency Detection - Parses imports and includes them automatically
• 🖥️ Full Screen UI - Tabbed interface with Code and Preview views
• ⚡ Zero Config - Works out of the box with npx

Installation

Via npx (no installation required)

npx artifact-cli create ./src/components/Button.tsx

Global Installation

npm install -g artifact-cli
artifact create ./src/components/Button.tsx

Local Development

bun install
bun run index.ts create ./src/components/Button.tsx

Usage

Create an Artifact

Generate a preview from a React component file:

artifact create ./src/components/Button.tsx

Output:

✓ Artifact created successfully!
  ID:  a1b2c3
  URL: http://localhost:3001

  To update: artifact update a1b2c3
  To preview: artifact preview a1b2c3

Update an Artifact

After modifying your component, update the preview:

artifact update <artifact-id>

Open an Artifact

Open the artifact URL in your default browser (starts server if stopped):

artifact open <artifact-id>

List Artifacts

See all artifacts and their server status:

artifact list

Output:

Artifacts:

  ID        Component         Status    Watchers  Location  URL
  ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  a1b2c3    Button            running   1         temp      http://localhost:3001/a1b2c3
  d4e5f6    Card              stopped   -         saved     http://localhost:3002/d4e5f6

Column	Description
ID	Unique artifact identifier
Component	Name of the React component
Status	running = server active, stopped = server down
Watchers	Number of browser tabs viewing this artifact
Location	temp = in temp folder, saved = persisted to project

Save an Artifact

Persist an artifact to your project directory for version control:

artifact save <artifact-id>

This copies the component to .artifact/saved/{id}/ in your current directory.

Unsave an Artifact

Move a saved artifact back to the temp directory:

artifact unsave <artifact-id>

Stop Servers

Stop a single server:

artifact stop <artifact-id>

Stop all running servers:

artifact stop --all

Clean Artifacts

Remove stopped artifacts:

# Remove a single stopped artifact
artifact clean <artifact-id>

# Remove all stopped artifacts
artifact clean --all

# Force stop and remove running artifacts
artifact clean --all --force

# Also remove saved artifacts
artifact clean --all --include-saved

Example

# Create a preview of a Button component
artifact create ./src/Button.tsx

# After making changes, update the preview
artifact update a1b2c3

# Open it in the browser
artifact open a1b2c3

# Save it to your project for version control
artifact save a1b2c3

# Clean up when done
artifact clean --all

OpenCode Integration

Install artifact-cli as a custom tool for OpenCode:

artifact opencode install

This creates 5 tools that OpenCode's LLM can call:

Tool	Description
artifact-cli_verify	Check if CLI is installed, provide installation instructions if not.
artifact-cli_help	Show full CLI documentation and usage examples.
artifact-cli_create	Create an artifact from inline React code. Returns artifact ID and URL.
artifact-cli_update	Update artifact code and hot reload the preview.
artifact-cli_open	Open artifact in browser (starts server if stopped).

How it works with agents:

1. Agent calls verify to check if artifact-cli is installed
2. Agent calls create with React component code → Gets artifact ID and URL
3. Agent calls update with new code → Preview hot reloads automatically
4. Agent calls open to show the preview in browser (optional)

The agent passes component code directly (not file paths), and all files are managed in a temp directory transparently.

Preview UI

The preview interface features:

• Header - Shows component name and status indicator
• Code Tab - Full-screen code editor with file tabs
• Preview Tab - Full-screen rendered component

How It Works

1. Parse - The CLI parses your React component and detects dependencies
2. Store - Saves component code to a temp directory (only user data stored)
3. Serve - Starts an isolated server that generates Sandpack HTML on-the-fly
4. Preview - Opens the component in your browser

Architecture Highlights

• Runtime from CLI - Server and wrapper code live in the CLI, not copied to temp folder
• On-the-fly Generation - HTML is generated at request time, not stored
• CLI Upgrades Apply Automatically - Upgrading the CLI improves all existing artifacts
• Clean Data Separation - Temp folder only contains your component code

Architecture

This project follows Clean Architecture principles:

src/
├── cli/                    # CLI commands (Presentation layer)
├── domain/
│   ├── entities/           # Core business entities
│   ├── usecases/           # Business logic orchestration
│   ├── repositories/       # Repository interfaces
│   └── services/           # Service interfaces
└── infrastructure/         # External implementations
    ├── repositories/       # File-based storage
    ├── server/             # Artifact server module (spawned per artifact)
    ├── services/           # TypeScript parser, server manager
    └── templates/          # Sandpack HTML template generator

Temp Folder Structure

{tmpdir}/artifact-cli/
├── artifacts.json          # Artifact metadata
└── artifacts/
    └── {id}/
        ├── component.tsx   # User data (only this is persistent!)
        └── .runtime/       # Ephemeral runtime state
            ├── server.pid
            └── server.log

Documentation

• Project Overview
• Architecture

Requirements

• Node.js 18+ (for npx/npm usage)
• Or Bun v1.0+ (for local development)

License

MIT