🚀 Showcasing hostly — a terminal tool for local domains with HTTPS (no config files, no pain)

Bilal Bentoumi — Sun, 21 Jun 2026 21:57:39 +0000

If you’ve ever worked on multiple local services, you’ve probably done this dance:

edit /etc/hosts
run a reverse proxy (Caddy / Nginx)
generate HTTPS certs with mkcert
fix broken configs after reboot
repeat for every project

I got tired of that.

So I built hostly — a terminal-first tool that manages local development domains with HTTPS, reverse proxying, and persistence in one place.

🧠 What is hostly?

hostly is an interactive terminal app for managing local development domains on macOS and Linux.

It lets you map friendly domains like:

https://app.local
https://api.local

to local ports like:

localhost:3000
localhost:8080

with:

🔐 Trusted HTTPS (green padlock)
🔁 Reverse proxy via Caddy
🧩 Automatic /etc/hosts management
🔄 Persistent routing across reboots

⚙️ The problem it solves

A typical local setup looks like:

app.local → /etc/hosts → localhost → proxy → your app

But in reality:

/etc/hosts is manual and error-prone
Caddy config resets unless carefully managed
HTTPS locally is annoying to maintain
restarting your machine breaks everything

So developers end up duct-taping tools together.

✨ What hostly does differently

Instead of managing 4 different systems manually, hostly introduces a single source of truth.

🖥️ One terminal UI

hostly

A full-screen interactive interface:

Add/edit domains
Map ports
Choose HTTP / HTTPS
Manage certificates
Control daemon syncing

🔐 HTTPS that just works

hostly uses Caddy’s internal CA to issue trusted certificates locally.

So instead of:

“Not Secure ⚠️”

You get:

https://app.local ✔️ (trusted)

🔁 Automatic reverse proxying

Each domain is pushed to Caddy via its admin API:

app.local → 127.0.0.1:3000
api.local → 127.0.0.1:8080

No config files to touch manually.

🧩 Safe `/etc/hosts` management

hostly only modifies a managed block:

# Hostly Start
127.0.0.1 app.local
# Hostly End

Everything else stays untouched.

🔄 Boot persistence (daemon)

Caddy loses dynamic routes after restart.

So hostly includes a sync system:

hostly sync

And optional boot daemon:

macOS → launchd
Linux → systemd user service

It restores everything automatically.

📦 Installation

Requirements

Node.js ≥ 18
Caddy installed
macOS or Linux

Install

npm install -g hostly

Install Caddy:

brew install caddy

🚀 Usage

Start the app:

hostly

Add a domain:

Host: app.local
Port: 3000
Scheme: https

Then open:

https://app.local

Done.

🧩 How it works (simplified)

Browser
  ↓
/etc/hosts (resolves domain)
  ↓
Caddy (HTTPS + reverse proxy)
  ↓
Your app (localhost:3000)

hostly is the glue that keeps everything in sync.

🖥️ Tech stack

Ink (React for CLI UI)
Zustand (state management)
Caddy (reverse proxy + HTTPS)
Node.js
systemd / launchd integration

💡 Why I built it

I wanted a local dev environment where:

I don’t touch config files repeatedly
HTTPS works by default
domains feel real (app.local, not localhost:3000)
everything survives restarts

So I turned it into a CLI tool.

🧪 Try it out

npm install -g hostly
hostly

📌 Links

npm: https://www.npmjs.com/package/hostly
GitHub: https://github.com/bilalbentoumi/hostly
License: MIT

🙌 Feedback welcome

This is still early, and I’m actively improving it.

Feedback is welcome around:

CLI UX
missing features
developer workflow improvements

DEV Community: Bilal Bentoumi