Concepts
Local runtime
How the CLI starts and stores local Zitadel state.
zitadel start starts a managed local Zitadel runtime for app development.
The default runtime backend is the @zitadel/server npm binary that matches the selected alpha package train. It is intended for app developers and agents, so it does not require Docker, Go, Moon, or this repository.
Runtime metadata is stored in:
.zitadel/local/runtime.jsonRuntime data is stored in:
.zitadel/local/nextgen-datazitadel stop preserves that data. zitadel reset --force deletes it.
Use Docker only when intentionally testing the Docker backend:
npx @zitadel/cli@alpha start --runtime docker