How Omea decides to boot your app.

Detection order

1. docker-compose.yml or docker-compose.yaml — boots with docker compose up --build then docker compose up. This is a presence check only: Omea does not parse the compose file's own services or ports, it hands the file to Docker Compose and lets Compose interpret it.
2. .devcontainer/devcontainer.json — boots with devcontainer up. Same presence-only check; your devcontainer's own build and postCreate commands run as written.
3. package.json — runs Node inference (below).
4. omea.yaml — a manual, explicit recipe, read only if none of the above matched. It does not merge with inference; it fully replaces it.
5. None of the above — detection fails rather than guessing.

Node inference

When package.json exists, Omea infers a recipe from it directly:

• Package manager — pnpm-lock.yaml present → pnpm; else yarn.lock → yarn; else npm (the default, no lockfile required).
• Framework — read from dependencies/devDependencies: next → Next.js, @remix-run/react → Remix, vite → Vite, otherwise a generic Node app. Detection is by dependency name only.
• Boot script — uses scripts.dev if present, else scripts.start. If neither exists, detection fails with an explicit error rather than falling back silently.
• Port — 5173 when Vite is a dependency, otherwise 3000.

Databases: the Prisma/Postgres heuristic

If prisma/schema.prisma exists and its text contains provider = "postgresql", Omea adds a Postgres service, injects a DATABASE_URL, and runs your db:setup script if you have one (otherwise npx prisma db push). This is a narrow, literal string match on that one provider line — not general database detection, and not a guarantee for other ORMs or databases.

What's not detected yet

• Only npm, pnpm, and yarn are recognized — no bun or deno.
• Only the Postgres-via-Prisma path above triggers a database service; other drivers and ORMs need a manual omea.yaml today.
• Non-Node ecosystems (Python, Ruby, Go, Rust, PHP, JVM) have no inference — a compose file, devcontainer, or manual recipe is the way to boot those today.

Read next

• Getting started — run npx @omea/cli run against a real repo.
• The test format — what runs once your app has booted.