Capacitor Version: 8.0.0

Thanks Ionic team for the work you do! The root issue that I'm calling out with this issue is that cap run -l ignores server config, but there are a few related issues imo worth solving here. I'm hoping that this issue can be a suitable place to discuss them at a high level before creating small-scope issues.

If preferred, I'm happy to break these out into small-scope tickets now, just lmk.

Current Behavior

cap run -l ignores capacitor.config.{ts|json|etc} server config. Instead, what happens is as follows:

• If --host cli arg is used, use that value
  • If not, resolve to a reasonable external network interface || localhost
• If --port cli arg is used, use that value
  • Otherwise, use port 3000
• Concatenate values to form connection string http://{host}:{port}

Pain points, use cases, solutions

Hardcoded http protocol

Paint point 1: My company's auth provider refuses to work on non-localhost && non-encrypted (http://) connections. I.e. http://localhost is fine, but http://192.168.x.x fails. This of course creates problems for running locally on hardware devices.

Pain point 2: I would like to add tunneling to my app via a --tunnel flag. A standard tunneling setup might use ngrok, and would therefore use a connection string like https://some-endpoint.ngrok.com. In order to do this, I would need to pass that endpoint to cap run -l at runtime. Using just --host and --port this is impossible; I need to be able to control the protocol.

Solutions: Add support for a --https/--protocol/ssl flag to cap run -l.

Bad values imputed when no host/port

Pain point 1: cap run -l auto selects a reasonable network interface to try to load the app from. Oftentimes, a non-peer-accessible network is selected. I regularly experience this behavior:

• I'm at a coffee shop/on a mobile hotspot which blocks peer traffic on e.g. the 10.x.x.x address space
  • 169.254.x.x address space is peer-accessible

Pain point 2: cap run -l uses port 3000 when a --port cli arg isn't passed. We cannot reasonably make the assumption that we should use port 3000, especially when one of the dominant bundlers uses 5173 by default.

Solutions: Three distinct behaviors here would constitute a solution:

• If --host and --port are unset, use server.url
  • If server.url is unset, use reasonable default according to existing strategy
• If --host is unset, use server.hostname for host
• Add port to server config
  • if --port is unset, use server.port
  • If server.port is unset, use reasonable default according to existing strategy

Remaining server fields are ignored

I haven't experienced pain points with fields iosScheme, androidScheme, errorPath, appStartPath, clearText. I have however with allowNavigation.

Pain point: As mentioned in the section on http protocol hardcoding, I would like to set up tunneling. In order to do this, I need to add ngrok endpoints to allowNavigation. This is impossible with cap run -l because these config fields get nuked.

Docs Mismatch

I believe that the fixes I've articulated here would make this experience in line with what users expect; it works this way when running via Xcode, why wouldn't it work this way via cap run -l? In addition, the docs for Capacitor configuration and cap run make no mention of these limitations.

Action Items

I'm happy to open PRs to address each fix individually in the proposed order:

1. When --host and --port are unset, use capacitor.config.* server config values. Add port support to server config object here too. If all values unset, use existing strategy for reasonable defaults
2. Preserve server config items when using cap run -l
3. Add --https support to `cap run

Would Ionic welcome PRs to address any of these problems? If so, I will happy open PRs to address whatever work is welcome. In my experience, they would go a long way in reconciling observed behavior with documented behavior, and bettering the DX.

Thanks again for the work you do.

Other API Details

Platforms Affected

• iOS
• Android
• Web

Current Behavior

cap run -l ignores capacitor.config.{ts|json|etc} server config. Instead, what happens is as follows:

• If --host cli arg is used, use that value
  • If not, resolve to a reasonable external network interface || localhost
• If --port cli arg is used, use that value
  • Otherwise, use port 3000
• Concatenate values to form connection string http://{host}:{port}

Expected Behavior

cap run -l respects server config object in capacitor.config.*

Project Reproduction

https://github.com/aolsenjazz/fresh-cap-repo

Additional Information

File references:

• server config nuke in livereload.ts
• Default value selection for host/port cli args