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The dev server

Development with --watch: reload on every change.

> vendor/bin/swerve --watch
2026-10-19 15:49:17.85   swerve 0.1.0 serving ./swerve.php on http://127.0.0.1:8080 with 1 worker, reloading when PHP files change
2026-10-19 15:49:18.69 0 GET / 200 0.2ms
2026-10-19 15:49:19.86   Change detected in /srv/app/swerve.php; reloading
2026-10-19 15:49:19.86   Reload requested (changed: /srv/app/swerve.php): stopping 1 workers, then restarting swerve
2026-10-19 15:49:20.19   swerve 0.1.0 serving ./swerve.php on http://127.0.0.1:8080 with 1 worker, reloading when PHP files change
2026-10-19 15:49:20.19   Reload complete in 0.33 s
2026-10-19 15:49:21.02 0 GET / 200 0.2ms

Saving a file stops every worker (a request already in flight gets a 503), then starts new ones running the changed code: old and new code never run side by side. swerve waits 1 to 2 seconds after the last change before reloading, so saving several files at once costs one reload, not several.

What reloads, and what does not#

--watch scans the *.php files next to and below the swerve file, skipping vendor/ and names starting with a dot (an editor's lock file). vendor/composer/installed.php is the exception: it changes on composer install, so a dependency update reloads too.

A reload re-reads the swerve file and every class your application autoloads in the worker, Composer's class map and PSR-4 prefixes included. It does not pick up swerve itself, phasync, anything loaded through Composer's files autoloading, php.ini, or the command line options --watch was started with: restart vendor/bin/swerve for those.

A syntax error in a changed file is logged, and the workers keep failing to start — the old code is already gone — until you fix it and save again.