⚡ brovite

A lightweight Vite-like development tool and bundler designed to work especially well in mobile editors like Acode and Termux.

Features

• ⚡ ES Module support — write modern import/export syntax
• 🔗 Recursive bundling — resolves the full dependency graph automatically
• 🔄 Live reload — browser auto-refreshes on file save via WebSocket
• 🛠 Dev server — instant local HTTP server with module transformation
• 📦 Standard build — outputs a single bundle.js + index.html
• 💼 Professional build — full node_modules resolution, JSX, TypeScript, fonts, images
• 👀 Preview server — serve your built app locally before deploying
• 🔌 Plugin API — extend with custom transform hooks
• 🎨 Clean terminal output — colourised logs via picocolors

Installation

npm install -g brovite

After installation, run brovite from any project directory. esbuild is included — no extra installs needed.

Quick Start

mkdir my-app && cd my-app

cat > main.js << 'EOF'
import { greet } from './utils.js'
greet('World')
EOF

cat > utils.js << 'EOF'
export function greet(name) {
  console.log(`Hello, ${name}!`)
}
EOF

brovite dev
# → http://localhost:3000

CLI Commands

brovite dev [entry]

Start the development server with live reload.

brovite dev                    # entry: main.js, port: 3000
brovite dev src/main.js        # custom entry
brovite dev --port 8080        # custom port
brovite dev --host 0.0.0.0    # expose to network (test on phone)
brovite dev --open             # open browser automatically

| Option | Default | Description | |--------|---------|-------------| | --port <n> | 3000 | HTTP port | | --host <h> | localhost | HTTP host | | --open | false | Open in browser |

brovite build [entry]

Bundle the project for production.

brovite build                         # standard build
brovite build --professional          # full build with node_modules, JSX, fonts
brovite build --professional --minify # + minify output
brovite build src/main.jsx --professional

| Option | Default | Description | |--------|---------|-------------| | --professional | false | Use esbuild engine (see below) | | --outDir <dir> | dist | Output directory | | --minify | false | Minify bundle | | --sourcemap | false | Emit inline source map |

Output:

dist/
├── bundle.js    ← all modules concatenated / bundled
├── bundle.css   ← extracted CSS (professional mode)
└── index.html   ← ready to open in browser

brovite preview

Serve the production build locally.

brovite preview               # serves dist/ on port 4173
brovite preview --port 5000   # custom port
brovite preview --dir out     # custom directory

Standard vs Professional Build

Standard brovite build

Brovite's own lightweight bundler. Best for simple projects with only your own files.

• ✅ Your own .js files
• ✅ Relative imports (./utils.js)
• ✅ No extra dependencies needed
• ❌ Cannot resolve node_modules
• ❌ No JSX / TypeScript

Professional brovite build --professional

Uses esbuild under the hood. Best for real projects with npm packages.

• ✅ Everything in standard mode
• ✅ node_modules resolution (import react from 'react')
• ✅ React / Vue / Preact / Solid JSX
• ✅ TypeScript (.ts, .tsx)
• ✅ Fonts inlined as base64 (no missing font errors)
• ✅ Images inlined as base64
• ✅ CSS bundling and extraction
• ✅ Reads vite.config.js if present
• ✅ Copies public/ folder to dist/
• ✅ Handles malformed package.json files gracefully
• ✅ Tree shaking

ES Module Example

utils.js

export function greet(name) {
  console.log(`Hello, ${name}!`)
}

main.js

import { greet } from './utils.js'
greet('brovite')

Bundled output (dist/bundle.js)

function greet(name) {
  console.log(`Hello, ${name}!`)
}
greet('brovite')

Vite Project Compatibility

brovite works as a drop-in dev server for existing Vite projects:

# Instead of: vite
brovite dev

# Instead of: vite build
brovite build --professional

# Instead of: vite preview
brovite preview

The dev server automatically:

• Resolves bare imports (import vue from 'vue') from node_modules
• Transforms JSX and TypeScript on-the-fly
• Reads vite.config.js for compatible settings
• Serves unknown routes with index.html (SPA fallback)

React Project Example

npx create-react-app my-app
cd my-app
npm install


brovite dev                         # dev server with live reload
brovite build                       # static handle only css,js,html,module
brovite build --professional        # production bundle
brovite preview                     # preview the build

Font and Asset Handling

In professional mode, brovite automatically converts fonts and images referenced in CSS with absolute paths into base64 data URLs — so they always work in the bundle, even without a server.

Before (your CSS):

@font-face {
  font-family: 'Retro Gaming';
  src: url('/fonts/Retro Gaming.ttf');
}

After (in bundle.css):

@font-face {
  font-family: 'Retro Gaming';
  src: url('data:font/ttf;base64,AAAB...');
}

No missing font errors. No extra files to copy.

Acode / Termux Usage

brovite is optimised for Android development via Termux:

# Install Termux from F-Droid, then:
npm install -g brovite

# Navigate to your project
cd /storage/emulated/0/myapp

# Start dev server (accessible from device browser)
brovite dev --host 0.0.0.0

# Open http://localhost:3000 in your Android browser

For Acode's built-in preview (no server):

brovite build
# Open dist/index.html directly in Acode preview

Plugin API

const myPlugin = {
  name: 'my-plugin',

  // Transform module source before bundling
  transform(code, id) {
    return code.replace(/__VERSION__/g, '1.0.0')
  },

  // Resolve a custom import specifier
  resolveId(specifier, importer) {
    if (specifier === 'virtual:data') return '\0virtual:data'
    return null
  },

  // Load content for a resolved id
  load(id) {
    if (id === '\0virtual:data') return 'export const data = [1, 2, 3]'
    return null
  },

  buildStart() {},
  buildEnd()   {},
}

Architecture

brovite/
├── cli.js                          ← Binary entry (#!/usr/bin/env node)
└── src/
    ├── cli/commands.js             ← CLI (cac) — dev / build / preview
    ├── bundler/
    │   ├── bundle.js               ← Standard build orchestrator
    │   ├── professionalBuild.js    ← Professional build (esbuild-powered)
    │   ├── moduleGraph.js          ← Recursive dependency resolver
    │   ├── parser.js               ← ES module import/export parser
    │   └── transform.js            ← Import/export rewriter
    ├── server/
    │   ├── devServer.js            ← Dev HTTP server + bare import resolver
    │   ├── previewServer.js        ← Static file server
    │   └── websocket.js            ← WebSocket HMR + browser client
    ├── watcher/watcher.js          ← File watcher (chokidar)
    ├── plugins/pluginContainer.js  ← Plugin runner
    └── utils/
        ├── logger.js               ← Terminal output (picocolors)
        ├── resolve.js              ← node_modules resolver
        ├── viteCompat.js           ← Vite config reader + framework detector
        ├── path.js                 ← Path helpers
        └── fs.js                   ← Async fs + MIME types

Dependencies

| Package | Role | |---------|------| | esbuild | Professional bundler — JSX, TS, node_modules | | cac | CLI argument parsing | | chokidar | File watching | | es-module-lexer | Fast import/export parsing | | magic-string | Source-map-friendly code transforms | | ws | WebSocket HMR server | | picocolors | Terminal colours |

Changelog

v1.2.0

• Fixed: malformed package.json with GNU license headers no longer crashes the build
• Fixed: absolute font/image paths in CSS (/fonts/Retro Gaming.ttf) are now inlined as base64
• Added: public/ folder is automatically copied to dist/ in professional mode
• Added: better framework detection (React 16 vs 17 JSX transform)

v1.1.0

• Added: brovite build --professional using esbuild
• Added: bare import resolution in dev server (import vue from 'vue')
• Added: JSX/TypeScript support in dev mode
• Added: Vite project compatibility
• Fixed: brovite preview command not running (cac parsing bug)
• Fixed: Permission denied on Termux (chmod in prepare script)

v1.0.0

• Initial release

License

MIT