# Setting up SWISH for collaboration **URL:** \ **Category:** General\ **Created:** [August 4, 2026, 2:02pm UTC](https://swi-prolog.discourse.group/t/setting-up-swish-for-collaboration/9778 "2026-08-04T14:02:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![stassa.p](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/swi-prolog.discourse.group/stassa.p/32/712_2.png) [@stassa.p](https://swi-prolog.discourse.group/u/stassa.p)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2026, 2:02pm UTC](https://swi-prolog.discourse.group/t/setting-up-swish-for-collaboration/9778/1 "2026-08-04T14:02:20Z")
I’d like to use SWISH to collaborate with a colleague. I’ve tried to understand whether it is possible to do that and how, but I can’t seem to find where this is explained. The SWISH examples on [SWISH -- SWI-Prolog for SHaring](https://swish.swi-prolog.org/example/examples.swinb) are great in explaining how to use the online instance but what I’d ideally like to be able to do is to run an independent instance, ideally both online and off, which I’d share with my collaborator, just like sharing a jupyter notebook. Is there a tutorial for how to do this? Importantly we’d both need to be able to make our code run on SWISH, possibly as a library. For instance, I would like to be able to run one of my ILP systems inside SWISH and let another person experiment with the data and the hyperparameters of the learning procedure etc. But I think SWISH runs in a sandbox that restricts what libraries can be loaded? Is that correct? EDIT: hang on. I’m looking at the local installation instructions on the github. Apologies, I went straight to the SWISH instance running online thinking I’d find something there. Uh. It might be an idea to include a link to the github README in the online instance with a few words about how to run SWISH on your own. ---
**Author:** ![jan](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/swi-prolog.discourse.group/jan/32/4_2.png) [@jan](https://swi-prolog.discourse.group/u/jan)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2026, 2:33pm UTC](https://swi-prolog.discourse.group/t/setting-up-swish-for-collaboration/9778/2 "2026-08-04T14:33:41Z")
Yes. You’ll need a new instance and make your ILP system sandbox safe or share the instance without a sandbox after limiting access to trusted users. Nice examples of the first approach are in the Examples page below **Other public SWISH instances** Feel free to make PRs that help people to understand the SWISH installation and reuse possibilities. The system is pretty flexible (although notably the web technology side of things are quite dated ☹ ) Note that on the public server you can use `:- include(FileOrHash).` to include other files. ---
**Author:** ![stassa.p](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/swi-prolog.discourse.group/stassa.p/32/712_2.png) [@stassa.p](https://swi-prolog.discourse.group/u/stassa.p)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2026, 2:46pm UTC](https://swi-prolog.discourse.group/t/setting-up-swish-for-collaboration/9778/3 "2026-08-04T14:46:13Z")
> [@jan](#): > > Feel free to make PRs that help people to understand the [SWISH](https://swish.swi-prolog.org/) installation and reuse possibilities. The system is pretty flexible (although notably the web technology side of things are quite dated ☹ ) Thanks. If I get to know it well enough I will. I’m find with it being dated, for my purpose I think it should be fine. I don’t think I have the web development knowledge to help there though 😅 > [@jan](#): > > Note that on the public server you can use `:- include(FileOrHash).` to include other files. Thanks. I could potentially run my entire ILP system as one file but that would be a little inconvenient. ---
**Author:** ![jan](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/swi-prolog.discourse.group/jan/32/4_2.png) [@jan](https://swi-prolog.discourse.group/u/jan)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2026, 3:11pm UTC](https://swi-prolog.discourse.group/t/setting-up-swish-for-collaboration/9778/4 "2026-08-04T15:11:06Z")
> [@stassa.p](#): > > Thanks. I could potentially run my entire ILP system as one file but that would be a little inconvenient. SWISH’s :- include/1 works recursively and can even deal with cycles 🙂 Just, you have no modules ☹ ---
**Author:** ![stassa.p](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/swi-prolog.discourse.group/stassa.p/32/712_2.png) [@stassa.p](https://swi-prolog.discourse.group/u/stassa.p)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2026, 3:23pm UTC](https://swi-prolog.discourse.group/t/setting-up-swish-for-collaboration/9778/5 "2026-08-04T15:23:15Z")
Oops. My ILP system relies on modules to find clean copies of training data and many other things. I’ll just have to run locally outwith a sandbox. I hope. ---
**Author:** ![stassa.p](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/swi-prolog.discourse.group/stassa.p/32/712_2.png) [@stassa.p](https://swi-prolog.discourse.group/u/stassa.p)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2026, 3:43pm UTC](https://swi-prolog.discourse.group/t/setting-up-swish-for-collaboration/9778/6 "2026-08-04T15:43:56Z")
Alright! That wasn’t hard after all. I got SWISH running locally and communicating with my SWI IDE like it says here: [GitHub - SWI-Prolog/swish: SWI-Prolog for SHaring: a SWI-Prolog web IDE · GitHub](https://github.com/SWI-Prolog/swish/tree/master#running-swish-as-additional-local-ide). That’s great because all my project’s files are loaded into SWISH and I don’t need to mess with include/1 and weird windows paths. Only one problem now: I don’t know how to open my project’s files in SWISH. I’d like to edit them in place in SWISH, instead of alt/tabbing back and forth between SWISH and the IDE. Is there a way to do that? ---
**Author:** ![stassa.p](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/swi-prolog.discourse.group/stassa.p/32/712_2.png) [@stassa.p](https://swi-prolog.discourse.group/u/stassa.p)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2026, 3:51pm UTC](https://swi-prolog.discourse.group/t/setting-up-swish-for-collaboration/9778/7 "2026-08-04T15:51:33Z")
Two little things I noticed: a) Probably a bug: consulting `run.pl` on the windows terminal (powershell console) doesn’t start the server: ```prolog For online help and background, visit https://www.swi-prolog.org For built-in help, use ?- help(Topic). or ?- apropos(Word). 6 ?- [run]. % Library was moved: library(http/json) --> library(json) % Updating GIT version stamps in the background. Warning: C:/Users/YeGoblynQueenne/Documents/Prolog/swish/lib/render/svgtree.pl:131: Warning: Singleton variables: [Term] true. ``` This is what it looks in the SWI IDE instead: ```prolog 42 ?- swish. % Library was moved: library(http/json) --> library(json) % Updating GIT version stamps in the background. Warning: C:/Users/YeGoblynQueenne/Documents/Prolog/swish/lib/render/svgtree.pl:131: Warning: Singleton variables: [Term] % Started server at http://localhost:57052/ true. ``` Maybe something related to the latest bug fixes for the console glitch? b) Swish can’t seem to find my debug subjects. Swish: ```prolog debug(learn). learn: no matching debug topic (yet) 1true ``` SWi IDE: ```prolog 43 ?- debug(learn). true. ``` EDIT: just to clarify, SWISH then fails to print out my debug statements while the SWI IDE does print them. ---
**Author:** ![jan](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/swi-prolog.discourse.group/jan/32/4_2.png) [@jan](https://swi-prolog.discourse.group/u/jan)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2026, 5:42pm UTC](https://swi-prolog.discourse.group/t/setting-up-swish-for-collaboration/9778/8 "2026-08-06T17:42:47Z")
> [@stassa.p](#): > > Maybe something related to the latest bug fixes for the console glitch? No. This is intended. initialization/2 using `main` is executed on `swipl ... file.pl ...`. Loading the file in an existing session or running `swipl ... -l file.pl ...` does not execute the program. > [@stassa.p](#): > > b) [Swish](https://swish.swi-prolog.org/) can’t seem to find my debug subjects. Probably an optimization issue. See the Prolog flags `optimise` or `optimise_debug`. Using listing/1 should tell you whether the calls are optimised away.