portless Updates & Release Notes

New Features

OS startup service: New portless service install, portless service status, and portless service uninstall commands manage a native startup service for the HTTPS proxy across macOS launchd, Linux systemd, and Windows Task Scheduler. The service starts clean .localhost URLs after reboot, and portless clean removes it during cleanup. (#289)

Bug Fixes

Tailscale readiness preflight: --tailscale and --funnel now check Tailscale HTTPS and Funnel prerequisites before starting the child process, surfacing actionable errors instead of hanging during registration. (#282)

Contributors

@ctate

@Anshuman71

New Features

Tailscale sharing: New --tailscale flag shares any portless app over your Tailscale network with zero framework config. Each app is root-mounted on its own Tailscale HTTPS port (443, 8443, 8444, ...) so no basePath configuration is needed. Works as a global flag, per-app flag (portless myapp --tailscale next dev), or env var (PORTLESS_TAILSCALE=1). (#262)

Tailscale Funnel: New --funnel flag exposes apps to the public internet through Tailscale Funnel. Implies --tailscale. Also configurable via PORTLESS_FUNNEL=1. (#262)

PORTLESS_TAILSCALE_URL env var: Child processes receive PORTLESS_TAILSCALE_URL containing the Tailscale HTTPS URL so apps can reference their public address. (#262)

Tailscale URLs in portless list: The list command now shows tailnet URLs alongside local URLs when Tailscale sharing is active. (#262)

Improvements

portless prune cleans stale Tailscale registrations: Prune now removes orphaned tailscale serve entries left behind by dead CLI sessions. (#262)

portless clean removes Tailscale serve state: Clean now tears down any Tailscale serve/funnel registrations alongside the usual CA and hosts file cleanup. (#262)

Contributors

@ctate

New Features

portless prune command: Safety net to find and kill orphaned dev servers left behind by dead CLI sessions. Reads stale route entries, checks if something is still listening on each port, and terminates the orphan.

Bug Fixes

Zombie process orphaning on CLI crash: Spawn child processes with detached:true on Unix so they get their own process group. Signal handlers now kill the entire group instead of just the immediate child, preventing orphaned dev servers from surviving CLI crashes or kill -9.

Contributors

@ctate

New Features

Zero-arg mode: Run bare portless from any project directory to auto-discover the dev script from package.json and start it through the proxy. No arguments, no config required. (#251)

Multi-app orchestration: In monorepos, bare portless auto-discovers workspace packages (pnpm, npm, yarn, bun) and starts all dev scripts concurrently through the proxy. Each package gets a subdomain derived from its npm scope (e.g. @acme/docs becomes docs.acme.localhost). (#251)

Turborepo integration: When turbo.json is present, portless delegates to turbo run <script> instead of spawning each app individually. Per-app PORT, HOST, and PORTLESS_URL are injected via a lightweight --require loader so turbo retains dependency ordering and task graph awareness. Set turbo: false in config to opt out. (#251)

portless.json config file: Configure app name, script, port, and turbo settings without embedding portless in package.json scripts. Also supports a "portless" key in package.json as an inline alternative. (#251)

--script flag: Override the default "dev" script for a single invocation (e.g. portless --script start). (#251)

Rsbuild support: Auto-inject --port and --host CLI flags for Rsbuild dev server (#250)

Bug Fixes

State directory moved to ~/.portless: All proxy state now lives in ~/.portless instead of /tmp/portless, fixing repeated CA trust prompts on macOS (where /tmp is periodically cleaned) and a symlink local privilege escalation vulnerability (#251)

Duplicate macOS CA certificates: Fix security delete-certificate failing with "is ambiguous" when multiple portless CA entries had accumulated in the keychain (#251)

CA trust marker caching: Cache the CA fingerprint after a successful trust so subsequent proxy starts skip the OS security check and avoid re-triggering the macOS authentication dialog (#251)

Improvements

Auto-trust CA on proxy auto-start: When the proxy is auto-started and the CA is not yet trusted, portless automatically runs trust with proper sudo elevation (#251)

Package manager delegation: Detects pnpm, yarn, bun, or npm and delegates script execution to the correct package manager (#251)

Non-server script detection: Build-only tools (tsup, tsc, esbuild, etc.) are auto-detected and run without a proxy route. Use proxy: false in config for explicit control. (#251)

Monochrome CLI output: Bold for headers and errors, dim for warnings and muted text, no color codes (#251)

Contributors

@ctate

New Features

Auto-inject NODE_EXTRA_CA_CERTS: Child processes spawned by portless run now automatically receive NODE_EXTRA_CA_CERTS pointing to the portless CA certificate, so Node.js subprocesses trust the local CA without manual configuration (#220)

Bug Fixes

Proxy startup on slow macOS security command: Fix the proxy failing to start when the macOS security command takes longer than expected to verify CA trust (#229)

Lock contention with parallel commands: Fix lock contention that could cause failures when multiple portless commands run simultaneously (#230)

ERR_HTTP2_PROTOCOL_ERROR during HMR: Fix HTTP/2 stream reset flood during hot module replacement causing protocol errors (#231)

Proxy auto-start in non-interactive terminals: Fix auto-start failing in non-interactive terminals (e.g. IDE task runners) and when previous proxy config exists (#232)

Contributors

@ctate

New Features

portless clean: New command stops the proxy if it is running, removes the local CA from the OS trust store when it was installed by portless, deletes allowlisted files under known state directories, and removes the portless-managed block from the hosts file. Custom --cert and --key paths are never removed. (#213)

Improvements

Hosts file sync by default: The proxy now keeps the hosts file in sync with active routes automatically (improves Safari and other setups where .localhost subdomains do not resolve to loopback). Set PORTLESS_SYNC_HOSTS=0 to opt out. The managed block is removed from the hosts file when the proxy exits. (#213)

Contributors

@ctate

New Features

LAN mode: New --lan flag exposes portless services to phones and other devices on the same network via mDNS .local hostnames. Auto-detects the active LAN IP, follows network changes, and supports --ip / PORTLESS_LAN_IP overrides for VPN or multi-interface setups. Publishes mDNS records with platform-native tools (dns-sd on macOS, avahi-publish-address on Linux). Adds *.local to generated certificate SANs so HTTPS works for LAN hostnames. (#168)

VitePlus support: Auto-inject --port for VitePlus (vp) dev server (#147)

Contributors

@gabimoncha

@carderne

New Features

Origin/Referer header rewriting: The proxy now rewrites Origin and Referer headers for portless-managed hostnames so backend CSRF protections accept proxied requests (#189)

Bug Fixes

Browser-blocked ports excluded from auto-selection: Ports that browsers refuse to connect to (e.g. 6666, 6667) are now excluded from automatic port assignment (#192)

State directory preserved during sudo elevation: Fix portless trust losing the state directory when elevating to sudo (#187)

Windows OpenSSL config detection: Auto-detect openssl.cnf location on Windows when OPENSSLDIR points to a non-existent path (#183)

Contributors

@ctate

New Features

Project dev dependency install: portless can now be installed as a project dev dependency (npm install -D portless) in addition to the global install. The npx/dlx guard now only blocks one-off downloads, not locally installed packages. (#179)

Bug Fixes

portless trust on fresh install: Fix portless trust failing on a fresh install when no CA certificate exists yet. The command now generates the CA and server certificates automatically before trusting. (#177)

Contributors

@ctate

Breaking Changes

HTTPS on port 443 is now the default: The proxy defaults to HTTPS on port 443 instead of HTTP on port 1355. Auto-elevates with sudo on macOS/Linux to bind privileged ports. Use --no-tls for plain HTTP on port 80, or -p 1355 for the previous unprivileged port. (#172)

PORTLESS_HTTPS env var inverted: HTTPS is on by default; set PORTLESS_HTTPS=0 to disable (replaces the old PORTLESS_HTTPS=1 opt-in). (#172)

New Features

HTTP-to-HTTPS redirect: When the HTTPS proxy runs on port 443, a companion HTTP server on port 80 automatically redirects all requests to HTTPS. (#172)

Auto-sudo for proxy lifecycle: portless proxy start auto-elevates with sudo when binding privileged ports. portless proxy stop does the same when the running proxy is owned by root. (#172)

Clean URLs: URLs are now https://myapp.localhost instead of http://myapp.localhost:1355. No port numbers to remember. (#172)

Contributors

@ctate