Overview

This issue proposes adding lifecycle management commands to MXCP to standardize common development workflows like setup, testing, and deployment.

Problem Statement

Currently in MXCP projects:

• Setup scripts, test runners, deployment scripts are scattered across directories
• No standardized way to run common development tasks
• Scripts are often project-specific and not reusable
• Cross-platform compatibility issues (bash scripts don't work on Windows)
• Developers need to remember multiple commands and their locations

Proposed Solution

Add a new mxcp dev command group with subcommands for common lifecycle tasks:

Commands

• mxcp dev setup - Initialize project dependencies and environment
• mxcp dev test [--level light|full|unit] - Run tests at different levels
• mxcp dev deploy --target <target> - Deploy to configured targets
• mxcp dev run <command> - Execute custom lifecycle commands
• mxcp dev list - List all available lifecycle commands

Configuration

Projects define lifecycle commands in mxcp-site.yml:

lifecycle:
  setup:
    description: "Initialize project"
    commands:
      - command: "pip install -r requirements.txt"
        name: "Install dependencies"
      - command: "dbt deps"
        name: "Install dbt packages"
        condition: "if_not_exists:dbt_packages"
  
  test:
    light:
      description: "Quick tests"
      commands:
        - "mxcp test"
    full:
      description: "All tests"
      commands:
        - "mxcp test"
        - "dbt test"
        - "pytest"
  
  deploy:
    targets:
      production:
        description: "Deploy to AWS"
        commands:
          - "./deploy.sh"
        environment:
          required: ["AWS_REGION"]
  
  custom:
    clean:
      description: "Clean files"
      commands:
        - "rm -rf target/"

Benefits

1. Consistency: All team members use the same commands
2. Cross-platform: Works on Windows, macOS, and Linux
3. Self-documenting: Commands are defined with descriptions
4. Discoverable: List all available commands with mxcp dev list
5. Safe: Preview commands with --dry-run before executing

Implementation

• Add new src/mxcp/cli/dev.py module
• Update schema to support lifecycle configuration
• Create comprehensive tests
• Add documentation

This aligns with MXCP's existing patterns (similar to mxcp dbt wrapper) and enhances the developer experience.