@wuyuchentr/file-watcher-lite

Lightweight file/directory watcher — ~80% lighter than chokidar.

Built on fs.watch with debounce, recursive watching, and file filtering. Zero dependencies.

Install

npm install @wuyuchentr/file-watcher-lite

Usage

const { watch } = require('@wuyuchentr/file-watcher-lite');

const w = watch('./src', { recursive: true, debounce: 100 });

w.on('change', (ev) => console.log('changed:', ev.path));
w.on('unlink', (ev) => console.log('deleted:', ev.path));

// Stop
w.close();

Events

| Event | Description | |-------|-------------| | change | File modified or added | | unlink | File deleted | | all | All events |

Options

| Option | Default | Description | |--------|---------|-------------| | recursive | true | Watch subdirectories | | debounce | 100 | Debounce interval in ms | | filter | — | Glob / Regex / Function / Array — include only matching files | | ignore | — | Glob / Regex / Function / Array — exclude matching files |

Filter examples

// Regex
watch('./src', { filter: /\.js$/ })

// Glob
watch('./src', { filter: '*.js' })

// Multiple patterns
watch('./src', { filter: ['*.js', '*.ts'], ignore: '*.test.js' })

// Function
watch('./src', {
  filter: (p) => p.endsWith('.js') && !p.includes('/node_modules/'),
})

Comparison

| | chokidar | this | |---|----------|------| | Bundle size | ~200 KB | ~2 KB | | Dependencies | 7+ | 0 | | Polling fallback | ✓ | ✗ | | macOS | ✓ | ✓ | | Linux (recursive) | ✓ | Node ≥ 19 | | Windows | ✓ | ✓ |