name	tilt
description	Manages Tilt development environments via CLI and Tiltfile authoring. Must use when working with Tilt or Tiltfiles.

Tilt Development Environment

Automatic Reload Behaviors

Tilt live-reloads aggressively. Never suggest restarting tilt up or manually refreshing resources—Tilt handles this automatically in nearly all cases.

What Reloads Automatically

Change Type	What Happens	Your Action
Tiltfile edits	Tilt re-evaluates the entire Tiltfile on save	Just save the file
Source code with `live_update`	Files sync to container without rebuild	Just save the file
Source code without `live_update`	Full image rebuild triggers automatically	Just save the file
Kubernetes manifests	Resources re-apply automatically	Just save the file
Frontend with HMR	Browser updates via Hot Module Replacement	Just save the file
Backend with watch tools	Process restarts via nodemon/air/watchexec	Just save the file

When Restart IS Actually Needed

Restarting tilt up is required only for:

Tilt version upgrades
Changing Tilt's port or host settings
Recovering from Tilt crashes
Kubernetes context changes (switching clusters)

Verifying Updates Applied

Instead of restarting, verify updates propagated:

# Check resource status after saving
tilt get uiresource/<name> -o json | jq '.status.updateStatus'

# Watch for update completion
tilt wait --for=condition=Ready uiresource/<name> --timeout=60s

# Snapshot logs and search for reload confirmation
tilt logs <resource> | tail -50
tilt logs <resource> | rg -i "reload|restart|updated|synced"

Instructions

Use tilt get uiresources -o json to query resource status programmatically
Use tilt get uiresource/<name> -o json for detailed single resource state
Use tilt logs <resource> to snapshot logs, then pipe to tail/head/rg to search
Use tilt trigger <resource> to force updates when auto-reload didn't trigger
Use tilt wait to block until resources reach ready state
For Tiltfile authoring, see @TILTFILE_API.md
For complete CLI reference with JSON parsing patterns, see @CLI_REFERENCE.md

Quick Reference

Check Resource Status

tilt get uiresources -o json | jq '.items[] | {name: .metadata.name, runtime: .status.runtimeStatus, update: .status.updateStatus}'

Wait for Resource Ready

tilt wait --for=condition=Ready uiresource/<name> --timeout=120s

Get Resource Logs

tilt logs <resource>

Trigger Update

tilt trigger <resource>

Lifecycle Commands

tilt up        # Start Tilt
tilt down      # Stop and clean up
tilt ci        # CI/batch mode

Resource Status Values

RuntimeStatus: unknown, none, pending, ok, error, not_applicable
UpdateStatus: none, pending, in_progress, ok, error, not_applicable

References

Tilt Documentation: https://docs.tilt.dev/
CLI Reference: https://docs.tilt.dev/cli/tilt.html
Tiltfile API: https://docs.tilt.dev/api.html
Extensions: https://github.com/tilt-dev/tilt-extensions

tilt

Install Skill

SKILL.md