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Fix Astro dev port conflicts and stale pages

A common Astro pain point during active edits is this pattern:

  • dev server jumps to a new port (4321, 4322, 57635, etc.)
  • one page shows old content while another shows new content
  • image paths behave inconsistently

This is almost always multiple stale dev processes + cached generated state.

One-command reset flow

Run this from project root:

pkill -f "astro dev" || true
pkill -f "npm run dev" || true
rm -rf .astro
npm run dev

Then use only the fresh URL Astro prints (usually http://localhost:4321).

Why this fixes it

  • pkill removes old servers serving old state
  • deleting .astro forces content/types regeneration
  • starting one server gives a single source of truth

Verify you are on the right server

  1. Open the newly printed local URL
  2. Hard refresh once
  3. Confirm your latest content is visible

If old pages still appear, you are likely browsing a stale port tab.

Optional hardening

If this happens often, use a consistent startup habit:

  • close old terminal sessions first
  • start only one npm run dev
  • avoid running dev from multiple shells

Small discipline here saves a lot of debugging time later.

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