How to set up an HTTPS server on OS X

Every so often I find myself needing to run up an HTTPS server locally for development. Here are the steps for doing on OS X, assuming you’ve already installed Homebrew:

brew install mkcert
brew install nss
brew install http-server

mkcert -install
<Enter root password for CA store to be imported>

cd <project website root>
mkcert localhost

http-server -S -C localhost.pem -K localhost-key.pem

Check activity on https://localhost:8080

The mkcert tool creates a local certificate authority (CA) that is then added to the local trust store (that’s why you need the root password) so that it can be trusted by the system.