There are a few things that will make managing your pico engine and writing KRL code easier. 

Managing your Pico Engine

If you need to remove your pico engine and change to a different version, follow these instructions.

1. If you wish to remove all picos and start over, use one or more of these commands.

   rm -r ~/.pico-engine/db #removes all picos and cached ruleset source code
   rm -r ~/.pico-engine/rulesets #removes compiled ruleset node modules
   rm -r ~/.pico-engine #shortcut to do both of the above

2. Remove the pico engine code.

   npm rm -g pico-engine

3. Install a specific version of the pico engine code. In this example, the engine as of March 13, 2017 was at version 0.5.7.

   npm install -g pico-engine@0.5.7

Running multiple pico engines

To run multiple pico engines on the same host, you will need to assign each instance of the engine a different port and a different folder for its database and ruleset cache. For example, while running a pico engine listening on the default port, and using the default location for its database, you could start an additional instance with a command like this one:

PORT=8081 PICO_ENGINE_HOME=~/.pico-engine-1 pico-engine

Hosting Code

Because the rules engine reads your KRL program from the Web, it has to be available online. You can host it anywhere, but Github works especially well. See these instructions for more information about how to use Github to host KRL. 

The pico engine compiles your KRL into a Node.js module, which it stores in a folder at ~/.pico-engine/rulesets. (Node.js is a trademark of Joyent, Inc. and is used with its permission. We are not endorsed by or affiliated with Joyent.)

Flushing the Ruleset

Wherever you host your code, the rules engine caches it after parsing it for better performance. That means that you need to flush your code from the rules engine cache whenever you update it. After pushing a change to your ruleset, you will need to instruct the pico engine to retrieve the source code again and re-compile it. Use a URL like this one:

http://localhost:8080/api/ruleset/flush/hello_world

You will need to give the correct domain and port for your pico engine, and mention at the end the RID of your ruleset. In the example above, the RID is hello_world. You may also flush the ruleset by going to the Rulesets tab, deleting the ruleset from your pico, and entering its URL and clicking on the "install ruleset from URL:" button.

Parsing KRL

You need to be able to check your ruleset for parse errors before checking it in. Debugging syntax errors on the rules engine is a messy business. 

There are three ways to do it.

1. You can use the "Engine Rulesets" page, hosted by the pico engine at http://localhost:8080/ruleset.html, and copy and paste your KRL ruleset into it. 
2. You can download and run the node pico engine compiler on your own machine and run it from the command line. 
3. You can install a pre-commit hook for git, so that your code is automatically parsed when you commit changes. If your code fails to parse, the change will not be committed.

The second and third methods are recommended for any serious development.

To validate using the first method, open the "Engine Rulesets" page, and paste your entire ruleset into the big text area, and click the "validate" button. When your KRL compiles correctly, you will see a result of "ok" beneath the buttons, with the page looking like this screenshot.