Local Environment
Software Factory → Local Environment shows you the actual cloud workspace an agent used while it worked a card. It is the same live working copy, not a copy or an export of it. The page subtitle says as much: "View workspace status for cards the agent has worked. With manage access, you can open the same cloud workspace the agent used."
The page lists one row per card that has, or has had, a workspace. Just seeing it needs environment:read. Opening a workspace needs environment:manage as well, and the project itself has to be mutable (an archived or otherwise locked project shows read-only status even to someone with manage access).
How do I read the list?
Each card shows its title, a colored status dot, and an open button:
| Status | Dot | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| Ready | green (pulsing on "Starting…", solid here) | The workspace is hot right now; opening it lands you in the agent's live tree instantly. |
| Starting… | yellow, pulsing | The workspace is currently spinning up. |
| Asleep | blue | The live workspace is not running, but a save-game of it exists; opening it restores that save (can take a few seconds). |
| Shipped | violet | No save-game exists, but the card's branch does; opening it clones that branch fresh. |
| Empty | gray | Nothing has been saved anywhere for this card yet; opening it gives you a genuinely empty workspace. |
| — | dark gray | Status could not be determined. |
Status is polled automatically about every 10 seconds, so a workspace waking up shows up without reloading the page.
While the list is loading, you will see three pulsing placeholder cards; if no project is selected yet, you get the usual "create a project" prompt instead of the page.
Nothing to show: "No environments yet — Dispatch a card to the agent — its workspace will appear here for you to open."
How do I open a workspace?
If you have manage access (and the project is mutable), each row's button reads Open in VS Code. Clicking it launches (or wakes or restores) the workspace and opens it in a new browser tab; because waking a cold workspace can take fifteen to twenty seconds, the button switches to Opening… while it works.
Once it opens, if you did not land in the agent's real live or restored tree, you are told exactly what you got instead, so you are never left assuming you are looking at the agent's actual work when you are not:
- "Opened from the card's shipped branch." means you got the branch, not a live or restored sandbox.
- "No saved work found for this card — the workspace opened empty." means genuinely empty.
- "Environment is starting — try again in a moment." means the workspace had not finished starting yet, so no link came back.
- "Could not open the environment." means the open attempt itself failed.
Without manage access, or on a non-mutable project, the page is otherwise fully readable (every card's status is still visible) but each button is disabled and reads Read only, and a banner across the top reads: "Read-only access: environment status remains visible, but opening an IDE is unavailable."
Where to find it
Left sidebar → Software Factory → Local Environment, or go straight to /software-factory/local-environment. It sits alongside Development, Pull Requests, and Deployments in the same sidebar section (plus Planning and Testing, which are marked "Soon" and are not functional yet). See the Development guide for the section that is most built out around this one.