The exe.dev UI showing the command being run

exe.dev has one API: it's the command you would write in the exe.dev lobby. For example, share add island-anchor "philip+demo2@bold.dev" shares the HTTP server for the VM island-anchor to that e-mail address. (We believe sharing a web app should be as simple as sharing a document!) You can do that very same command over our HTTP API. Our UI tells you what command it's running, right down to the quoting.

We do this for two reasons:

First, it teaches our users that everything they're doing in the UI, they (and their agents!) can do in the CLI. We know our users are going to want to script.

Second, it keeps us honest. The UI can't cheat. If the system doesn't expose the right API knobs, we find out immediately because the UI uses the same interface.

We like this pattern. We hope you do too.