Antora #1202 asked for a built-in antora serve: generate, HTTP, watch local sources, live reload, no new dependencies. MR !1109 was closed with it.

Upstream’s close: author-mode watch cannot see remote repos; new CLI commands should arrive via an extension system that does not exist yet; no more CLI investment until Commander is removed under the trusted-dependencies ADR (#1138); IDE AsciiDoc preview and UI-bundle reload are the preferred day-to-day path; further debate belongs in chat, not the issue tracker. A standalone library was called the simple path — and using antora-supplemental’s package was explicitly fine.

Progression in short:

  1. Proposal — dependency-free serve on the Antora CLI.
  2. Decline — not in core; wait for CLI plugins after Commander eradication; prefer IDE/UI workflows.
  3. Follow-up on the ticket — site-level preview is the Antora artifact; gating on unimplemented CLI extensibility leaves authors blocked.
  4. Maintainer reply — architectural choice; discuss philosophy in chat; library / supplemental package acceptable.
  5. Shipped here — @antora-supplemental/serve (optional incremental dirty-set rebuilds).

The ask was never “put an HTTP server in the generator.” It was antora serve on the CLI wrapper, library underneath — the same thin-CLI pattern the antora meta-package already uses for generate. That case — and why a bare CLI makes a second command cheap to audit, not radioactive — is written up on the blog:

Blog: antora serve belongs on the CLI wrapper

Until upstream puts serve on the default antora install (or registers it as a first-party CLI command over a sibling package), authors keep installing the supplemental binary. The capability exists. The mindshare path still does not.

Related: Blog argument · antora-serve · Earlier ship note · Antora #1202