Local Documentation Server

After Prism installs your environment, it can serve a local documentation site that gives you a live, browsable view of everything in your workspace — installed tools, cloned repositories, merged configuration, and more.

What It Is

The docs server is a lightweight HTTP server (docs_server/) that reads your workspace artifacts and renders them as browsable HTML pages. There is no external dependency, no cloud service, and no account required.

http://localhost:8000

Pages

Route What You See
/ Workspace overview — prism used, install date, platform
/tools All installed tools with version numbers
/repos Cloned repositories with status
/config Merged configuration viewer (merged-config.yaml rendered)
/prism-docs Your prism author’s documentation
/help Links to the Prism docs/ tree

Starting the Server

On-demand

make serve-docs
# Serves at http://localhost:8000

Background (non-blocking)

make serve-docs-bg
# Logs to /tmp/prism-docs.log

Direct

python3 docs_server/server.py --port 8000

What It Reads

The server reads from your workspace directory (~/.prism_workspace/):

File Used For
.prism_installed Install metadata (prism name, timestamp, platform)
docs/config/merged-config.yaml Tools, repos, environment config
docs/config/selected-sub-prisms.yaml Which optional tiers were chosen
docs/config/user-info.yaml Your profile (name, team, etc.)

Prism Author Documentation

If your prism package includes a docs/ directory, its Markdown files are automatically served at /prism-docs. This is how prism authors can ship user-facing documentation alongside their configuration — no separate hosting required.

Architecture

%%{init: {'theme': 'base', 'themeVariables': {'primaryColor': '#eef2ff', 'primaryTextColor': '#1e293b', 'primaryBorderColor': '#6366f1', 'lineColor': '#6366f1', 'secondaryColor': '#f0fdf4', 'tertiaryColor': '#faf5ff', 'background': '#ffffff', 'mainBkg': '#eef2ff', 'nodeBorder': '#6366f1', 'clusterBkg': '#f8faff', 'edgeLabelBackground': '#ffffff'}}}%%

flowchart LR
    subgraph workspace["~/.prism_workspace/"]
        MI[".prism_installed"]
        MC["merged-config.yaml"]
        SS["selected-sub-prisms.yaml"]
        UI["user-info.yaml"]
    end

    subgraph server["docs_server/ (localhost:8000)"]
        SC["workspace_scanner.py"]
        RD["renderer.py"]
        SV["server.py"]
    end

    subgraph pages["Browser"]
        OV["/ Overview"]
        TL["/tools"]
        RP["/repos"]
        CF["/config"]
        PD["/prism-docs"]
    end

    workspace --> SC
    SC --> SV
    RD --> SV
    SV --> pages

    style workspace fill:#f0fdf4,stroke:#22c55e,color:#1e293b
    style server fill:#eef2ff,stroke:#6366f1,color:#1e293b
    style pages fill:#faf5ff,stroke:#a855f7,color:#1e293b

The server is built on Python’s standard library only — no Flask, no pip dependencies.

See Also