grunt-nodev

Run nodev as a grunt task for easy configuration and integration with the rest of your workflow. This is essentially a clone of grunt-nodemon by Chris Wren, however I had difficulties with node-inspector so I edited the package to run nodev instead of nodemon.

Getting Started

If you haven't used grunt before, be sure to check out the Getting Started guide, as it explains how to create a gruntfile as well as install and use grunt plugins. Once you're familiar with that process, install this plugin with this command:

npm install grunt-nodev --save-dev

Then add this line to your project's Gruntfile.js gruntfile:

grunt.loadNpmTasks('grunt-nodev');

Documentation

Usage

The minimal usage of nodev runs with no options:

nodev: {
  dev: {}
}

When this is run, nodev will look at the package.json file for the main property and run its value as a command in node.

Here is a config that uses all of the available options for nodev:

nodev: {
  prod: {
    options: {
      file: 'test/server.js',
      args: ['production'],
      ignoredFiles: ['README.md', 'node_modules/**'],
      watchedExtensions: ['js', 'coffee'],
      watchedFolders: ['test', 'tasks'],
      debug: true,
      delayTime: 1
    }
  },
  exec: {
    options: {
      exec: 'less'
    }
  }
}

A common use case is to run nodev with other tasks concurrently. This can be achieved with the following config, which uses grunt-concurrent to run nodev and watch in a single terminal tab:

concurrent: {
  target: {
    tasks: ['nodev', 'watch'],
    options: {
      logConcurrentOutput: true
    }
  }
}

Options

file

Type: string

This is file that nodev runs and restarts when changes are detected.

args

Type: Array of strings

This is the list of arguments to be passed to your file.

ignoredFiles

Type: Array of string globs

This is a list of ignored files specified by a glob pattern. Here is an explanation of how to use the patterns to ignore files. This task will create a .nodevignore file in your repo based on these settings which nodev reads when it starts.

watchedExtensions

Type: Array of strings

This is a list of file extensions to watch for changes. By default, nodev watches .js, .coffee, and .litcoffee files.

watchedFolders

Type: Array of strings Default: '.'

List of folders to watch for changes if you don't want to watch the root folder and its subdirectories.

debug

Type: Boolean

Optionally launch the node.js debug server.

delayTime

Type: Number

Delay the restart of nodev by a number of seconds when compiling a large amount of files so that the app doesn't needlessly restart after each file.

exec

Type: string

You can use nodev to execute a command outside of node. Use this option to specify a command as a string with the argument being the file parameter above. You can read more on exec here.

Changelog

0.0.0 - Initial release