Bolt.new AI and Mercurial integration: Step-by-Step Guide 2025

There is no built‑in or automatic integration between Bolt.new AI and Mercurial (hg). Bolt.new does not natively support Mercurial repositories. The only valid way to “integrate” them is to treat Mercurial like any other external system: you use its CLI inside Bolt’s dev container (if available), or you interact with a Mercurial repo through its HTTP API / hgweb interface if your Mercurial server exposes one. In practice, most teams either convert the repo to Git temporarily, or they interact with Mercurial through its command‑line tool. Bolt.new itself will not clone, push, pull, or commit to hg unless you implement those operations manually via CLI or custom API calls.

 

What is actually possible

 

Bolt.new runs code inside a sandbox (a container) where you can execute normal shell commands and call external APIs. If you need Mercurial integration, there are only two real paths:

• Install and use the Mercurial CLI in Bolt’s shell and run hg commands manually.
• Call a remote Mercurial server that exposes hgweb (HTTP endpoints) using fetch/axios/etc.

These are normal engineering integrations. Nothing “special” for Bolt exists.

 

Path A — Use Mercurial CLI inside Bolt

 

If your Bolt.new environment allows shell access (Terminal tab) and Mercurial is installed or can be installed, you can operate normally:

// Install Mercurial in Debian/Ubuntu-based containers
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y mercurial

// Clone your repository
hg clone https://your-hg-server.com/repo myrepo

// Check status
hg status

// Commit changes
hg commit -m "Update from bolt sandbox"

// Push to remote
hg push

This works exactly like local development: Bolt.new is just the browser UI for the container, and the container executes the commands.

Important: Some Bolt sandboxes may not allow installing system packages. If apt is disabled, this method won’t work. In that case, you must use the HTTP API route.

 

Path B — Use Mercurial hgweb API (HTTP endpoints)

 

If your Mercurial server exposes hgweb, it provides endpoints for operations such as browsing files, pulling changesets, etc. These are standard HTTP URLs.

Example: cloning via hgweb is just HTTP access, so from your Bolt code you can fetch data like:

const res = await fetch("https://your-hg-server.com/repo/json-log", {
  method: "GET"
// If auth is needed, include Authorization header here
});
const log = await res.json();
console.log(log);

This returns the JSON log of changesets from the Mercurial server. You can call other hgweb endpoints the same way.

If authentication is required, you pass basic auth or tokens using standard headers:

const res = await fetch("https://your-hg-server.com/repo/json-log", {
  headers: {
    "Authorization": "Basic " + btoa("username:password")
  }
});

This works because Bolt.new allows normal HTTP requests out to the internet.

 

What is NOT possible

 

• Bolt.new cannot automatically sync to Mercurial.
• No built‑in hg panel, no native integration.
• No OAuth flow provided specifically for Mercurial.
• No “import Mercurial repo into Bolt” button.

You have to implement any required parts manually.

 

Recommended workflow (practical reality)

 

• Use Mercurial CLI inside Bolt if possible, because it behaves exactly like local dev.
• If CLI installation is blocked, interact with your Mercurial server via hgweb HTTP endpoints.
• If the goal is simply to use Bolt.new for prototyping and later push code back to Mercurial, do your prototyping in Bolt, then copy/paste or export files manually into your local machine and commit with hg locally.
• If long‑term integration is needed, consider mirroring Mercurial to Git (via hg‑git extension) — this is common in real teams because tooling for Git is broader.