Embe-cli with PHP on Google App Engine

I am planning on moving from "EmberJS" to the Ember-cli, though I have a small problem. Is it possible only to run file watcher instead of serving/using ember serve that will run local server? As I am running my PHP backend on the Google App Script I have already a local python HTTP server running in localhost:8080 I do not need another one to run in localhost:4200

If I dont run ember serve my local changes in development environment wont get updated. Is there a better way of doing this? Is it possible to use assets in in app folder when running in development environment? and use dist folder for staging/live environments?