CLI: Fix init not running dev when it should

[ndelangen]

Closes #32379

What I did

The wrong function was being used to init, causing only a subset of the procedure to run.

That caused the final step to not be called, thus dev wouldn't be executed.

I modified the bin code so it imports the correct function

Checklist for Contributors

Testing

The changes in this PR are covered in the following automated tests:

• stories
• unit tests
• integration tests
• end-to-end tests

Manual testing

This section is mandatory for all contributions. If you believe no manual test is necessary, please state so explicitly. Thanks!

Documentation

• Add or update documentation reflecting your changes
• If you are deprecating/removing a feature, make sure to update
  MIGRATION.MD

Checklist for Maintainers

• When this PR is ready for testing, make sure to add ci:normal, ci:merged or ci:daily GH label to it to run a specific set of sandboxes. The particular set of sandboxes can be found in code/lib/cli-storybook/src/sandbox-templates.ts

• Make sure this PR contains one of the labels below:

  Available labels

  • bug: Internal changes that fixes incorrect behavior.
  • maintenance: User-facing maintenance tasks.
  • dependencies: Upgrading (sometimes downgrading) dependencies.
  • build: Internal-facing build tooling & test updates. Will not show up in release changelog.
  • cleanup: Minor cleanup style change. Will not show up in release changelog.
  • documentation: Documentation only changes. Will not show up in release changelog.
  • feature request: Introducing a new feature.
  • BREAKING CHANGE: Changes that break compatibility in some way with current major version.
  • other: Changes that don't fit in the above categories.

🦋 Canary release

This PR does not have a canary release associated. You can request a canary release of this pull request by mentioning the @storybookjs/core team here.

core team members can create a canary release here or locally with gh workflow run --repo storybookjs/storybook canary-release-pr.yml --field pr=<PR_NUMBER>

Greptile Summary

Updated On: 2025-09-15 12:29:56 UTC

This PR fixes a critical bug in the Storybook CLI initialization process where the development server was not automatically launching after project setup when using pnpm create storybook@next. The root cause was an incorrect import path in the create-storybook package's bin entry point.

The key change is in code/lib/create-storybook/src/bin/run.ts, where the import statement was corrected from importing initiate from the package's top-level index (which exported doInitiate as initiate) to importing initiate directly from the initiate.ts file. Based on the codebase context, doInitiate is an internal function that only performs the setup steps, while initiate is the complete public API wrapper that includes additional logic to launch the development server when appropriate.

The change also includes cleanup in build-config.ts by removing unused imports (join from node:path). This fix ensures feature parity between the beta version (@next) and stable version (@latest) where the dev server was correctly starting after initialization, resolving the user experience issue where developers had to manually run storybook dev after the init process completed.

Confidence score: 4/5

• This PR addresses a specific, well-documented bug with a targeted fix that maintains existing behavior
• The change involves correcting an import path to use the intended function, which is a low-risk modification
• Careful attention should be paid to the import changes to ensure the correct function is being called across different entry points

[nx-cloud]

View your CI Pipeline Execution ↗ for commit 7c388ba

Command	Status	Duration	Result
nx run-many -t build --parallel=3	✅ Succeeded	42s	View ↗

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☁️ Nx Cloud last updated this comment at 2025-09-15 13:38:06 UTC

[greptile-apps]

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[shilman]

Thanks!! Any idea why doInitiate is re-exported as initiate in the first place?

[ndelangen]

No, I assumed that that was intentional, because that was not changed recently.

@kasperpeulen made it like that:
#28519

[ndelangen]

@shilman The sandbox command uses that:

storybook/code/lib/cli-storybook/src/sandbox.ts

Line 227 in e642f4e

const { initiate } = await import('create-storybook');

So it's intentional: as a sandbox uses initiate, but shouldn't auto-dev