Detection

When a project has no .spinup.yml, spinup scans it and writes one. Scanning reads files; the only command it runs is docker compose config, which starts nothing. Every generated command records why it was chosen, and --doctor shows the same for a fresh scan.

Order

1. The project's own dev command. An executable bin/dev, the entries of Procfile.dev (except release), or a dev recipe, target or task in justfile, Makefile, Taskfile.yml or mise.toml. It runs alone, because it already starts what the project needs. Other launchers found are listed as notes.
2. A monorepo's root dev script, which is its orchestrator. To run each application as its own service instead, edit the generated file; see configuration.
3. Each project in the repository. Declared workspaces (workspaces in package.json, pnpm-workspace.yaml, with ! exclusions) or, without a declaration, the directories under apps/, services/, packages/ and crates/.
4. Compose, as a single docker compose up.

When nothing runnable is found, spinup asks for the command in a terminal and fails elsewhere. It never writes a guess.

What counts as runnable

Stack	Evidence	Command
Node	dev, start:dev, develop, serve or start script; server.js; index.js with Express or Fastify	npm run dev, pnpm dev, yarn dev, bun run dev, node server.js
Python	manage.py; app = FastAPI() or app = Flask() in source	python3 manage.py runserver, uvicorn module:app --reload, flask --app module:app run --debug, through uv run, poetry run or .venv/bin when the project uses them
Go	.air.toml; package main at the root or in cmd/<name>	air, go run ., go run ./cmd/<name>
Rust	[package] with src/main.rs or [[bin]] tables	cargo run, cargo run --bin <name>
Ruby	bin/rails; config.ru with a Gemfile	bin/rails server, bundle exec rackup
PHP	artisan; public/index.php with composer.json	php artisan serve, php -S localhost:8000 -t public
Java, Kotlin	Spring Boot or Quarkus plugin in Gradle or Maven	./gradlew bootRun, ./mvnw spring-boot:run, quarkusDev, quarkus:dev
Deno	tasks.dev in deno.json	deno task dev
Compose	compose.yaml, compose.yml, docker-compose.yaml or docker-compose.yml	docker compose up

test and check scripts, library packages, library crates and plain builds are never treated as something to run.

Details

• Package manager: packageManager in package.json wins over lockfiles; a disagreement is reported.
• Compose: spinup follows Compose's own file precedence, applies the override file and leaves services behind a profile optional. Without the Docker CLI it reads the files itself and says that include, extends and interpolation were not resolved.
• Names: services with the same name get their runtime (app-node, app-python) or path (apps-api, services-api) added.
• Dependencies: services depend on the Compose service when there is one, and web, frontend or client depend on api, server or backend.