Use the watsonx Orchestrate Developer Edition to import and test agents and tools built with the ADK in a local environment. This setup allows you to validate functionality before deploying to a remote environment on a watsonx Orchestrate instance. The Developer Edition provides a local server and access to server commands that assist in debugging. These commands help you identify errors and manage agent and skill requests during development. The following commands are available only if you have access to the watsonx Orchestrate Developer Edition.

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Starting the server

To start the local server, run:
BASH
orchestrate server start -e <path-.env-file>
Ensure your environment variables are correctly configured in the .env file. When properly set, the ADK automatically pulls the watsonx Orchestrate Developer Edition images and configures the necessary containers. For more information see, Installing the watsonx Orchestrate Developer Edition. Once started, the following services become available:

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Activating the local environment

To activate the local instance within the ADK, run:
BASH
orchestrate env activate local

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Viewing server logs

To display server logs, run:
BASH
orchestrate server logs

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Launching the local UI

To start the local UI for watsonx Orchestrate Developer Edition, run:
BASH
orchestrate chat start
Access the UI at: http://localhost:3000/chat-lite

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Resetting the server

To stop the server, remove all Docker containers, and reset data volumes, run:
BASH
orchestrate server reset

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Stopping the server

To stop the running server and associated Docker containers, use:
BASH
orchestrate server stop
To restart the watsonx Orchestrate Developer Edition, run the orchestrate server start command again. For more information, see Starting the server.