Spin up a local server for HTML sites

A browser will not map /contact/ to contact/index.html for you. Only a server does that.

Right around year 2019, major browsers locked down file:// so a page opened without a server could no longer freely load sibling local files the way a normal site does over http. Shared headers via fetch(), ES modules, and other multi-file patterns fail or behave oddly.

For HTML sites you plan to ship in Pathline Web Studio, preview through a local server. The browser talks to http://127.0.0.1 (or localhost) like production.

Locally: open the site through a local server. Not by double-clicking folders or opening raw file:// paths.

What a local server gives you

• Real URLs. Example: http://127.0.0.1:5173/
• Folder routes. Pages in folders work as paths: /contact/, /snow-removal/, and so on.
• Replicatable. CSS, JS, images, and relative links resolve the same way they will after you upload.

A simple site layout

Keep one root folder for the site. Put an index.html at the root. Put each section in its own folder with its own index.html if you want clean folder URLs.

your-site/
├── index.html
├── contact/
│   └── index.html
├── snow-removal/
│   └── index.html
├── css/
│   └── site.css
├── js/
│   └── site.js
└── images/

With a local server pointed at your-site/:

• http://127.0.0.1:5173/ serves the homepage
• http://127.0.0.1:5173/contact/ serves the contact page
• http://127.0.0.1:5173/snow-removal/ serves the snow-removal page

Option 1: npx serve

If you have Node.js installed, this is the fastest one-liner from the terminal.

cd your-site
npx serve

Open the URL it prints (often something like http://127.0.0.1:3000). Stop the server with Ctrl+C when you are done.

Option 2: Live Server (VS Code / Cursor)

Install the Live Server extension. Right-click index.html (or the site folder) and choose Open with Live Server.

It starts a local URL, reloads when you save, and keeps folder routes working. Same idea as npx serve, inside the editor.

Option 3: Python

No Node? Python ships a tiny static server:

cd your-site
python3 -m http.server 5173

Then open http://127.0.0.1:5173/. Folder routes still work as long as each folder has an index.html.

Checklist before you upload to Pathline

1. Serve the site root folder, not a parent directory of random projects.
2. Click every folder route: home, contact, service pages.
3. Confirm CSS and images load without 404s.
4. Submit a test Pathline form, with your access key, if the page has one.
5. Upload that same folder structure to Pathline Web Studio.

Why this matters for Web Studio

Pathline hosts custom HTML. What you preview locally should match what you upload: folders, relative paths, and shared CSS/JS.

To ensure reproducibility between production and local development, you should always spin up a local server, walk the folder routes, then ship.

Learn more about Pathline Hosting