# WebSharper CLI - dotnet ws

The WebSharper CLI, a recent addition to the WebSharper toolset, aims to streamline common WebSharper tasks/chores with a simple command-line interface via a .NET tool called dotnet-ws. Currently, this covers the following:

• Managing WebSharper Booster runtimes/instances. For each version of WebSharper you use in your projects, by default, a Booster instance will be allocated to enhance the compiler's performance. Sometimes, you might need to interact with these instances, such as listing, starting or stopping them.
• Building WebSharper projects with no configuration changes. Most of the time you recompile, the compilation context (references, target runtime, etc.) are unchanged and going with the ordinary dotnet build performs unnecessary steps. In these cases, and in certain project types, you can use the WebSharper CLI to compile your projects faster. See the compilation speed page for more details.

You can install the WebSharper CLI via dotnet install:

dotnet tool install -g dotnet-ws

Specifying -g will make the tool available globally on your machine, and this is recommended. Once you have it installed, you can invoke it with dotnet ws.

$ dotnet ws
dotnet-ws is a dotnet tool for WebSharper.

SUBCOMMANDS:

    build <options>       Build the WebSharper project in the current folder (or in the nearest parent folder). You can
                          optionally specify a project file using `--project`.
    start <options>       Start the Booster service (wsfscservice) with the given RID and version. If no value is given
                          for version, the latest (as found in the local NuGet cache) will be used.
    stop <options>        Send a stop signal to the Booster service with the given version. If no version is given all
                          running instances are signaled. Use `--force` to kill process(es) instead of sending a stop
                          signal.
    list                  List running Booster versions and their source paths.

    Use 'dotnet-ws.exe <subcommand> --help' for additional information.

OPTIONS:

    --help                display this list of options.

The WebSharper Booster is started as a standalone service called wsfscservice.exe when you first compile a WebSharper project, unless you specifically turn the Booster off in that project.

{
  ...
  "standalone": true,
  ...
}```

The Booster manages the runtimes that do the actual compilation work, one runtime per compiler version. If you use different WebSharper compilers (by version) in your various projects, you will notice that the Booster will report a runtime instance for each.

$ dotnet ws list
The following wsfscservice versions are running:

  version: 6.0.0.226; path: C:\Users\granicz\.nuget\packages\websharper.fsharp\6.0.0.226\tools\net6.0\win-x64\wsfscservice.exe
  version: 6.0.0.228; path: C:\Users\granicz\.nuget\packages\websharper.fsharp\6.0.0.228\tools\net6.0\win-x64\wsfscservice.exe.