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uip rpa start-studio

uip rpa start-studio brings up a UiPath Studio instance and waits until it reports ready. Most uip rpa verbs that drive Studio bring up an instance on demand, so calling start-studio explicitly is rarely needed — use it when you want to warm up Studio at the beginning of a script (so the first downstream verb does not pay the startup cost) or to verify that a Studio installation is reachable.

The command is short-circuit safe: if a Studio instance already matches the resolved project directory, it is reused. Otherwise, the tool starts a new one.

note

Studio is Windows-only

Studio runs only on Windows. uip rpa start-studio therefore works only on Windows runners. The packager verbs (pack, build, analyze, restore) do not need Studio and run on any OS that meets the .NET runtime requirement.

Synopsis​

uip rpa start-studio [options]

This verb takes no arguments and no per-command options. Resolution behavior is controlled by the parent-level options shared by every uip rpa verb:

Parent optionDescription
--project-dir <path>Project directory used to match against running Studio instances. Defaults to the current working directory.
--studio-dir <path>Path to a Studio installation, when discovery cannot find one automatically.
--timeout <seconds>Maximum time to wait for a Studio instance to become ready. Default: 300.
--verboseEnable verbose logging from the IPC resolver.

For the complete option list on your installed tool version, run:

uip rpa start-studio --help
uip rpa --help

Behavior​

The resolution waterfall:

  1. Match by project directory — if a running Studio instance has the requested --project-dir open, that instance is reused.
  2. Idle instance — if a Studio instance is running but has no project open, the project is opened in it.
  3. Start a new Studio — otherwise, a new Studio process is started and polled until it reports ready.

On success, the command prints the resolved instance's process ID. The instance stays running after the command exits — uip rpa start-studio does not own the lifecycle of the Studio process; closing Studio is left to the user.

Examples​

# Bring up Studio for the current directory
uip rpa start-studio

# Bring up Studio for a specific project
uip rpa start-studio --project-dir ./MyProject

# Verbose, so you can see where the resolver is looking
uip rpa start-studio --verbose

Warm-up pattern​

Other verbs auto-resolve Studio on demand, but the first one in a session pays the startup cost. To shift that cost to a setup step:

uip rpa start-studio --project-dir ./MyProject

# downstream verbs reuse the warmed-up instance
uip rpa get-errors
uip rpa find-activities --query "Click"
  • uip rpa list-instances — list running Studio instances visible to the resolver (hidden in --help; callable directly).

See also​