grunt-watchify

Grunt task for node-browserify.

Getting Started

This plugin requires Grunt ~0.4.0 and Node >=0.10.x.

Install this grunt plugin with:

npm install grunt-watchify --save-dev

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

grunt.loadNpmTasks('grunt-watchify');

Differences with grunt-browserify

• grunt-watchify watches the dependencies like watchify and rebuilds the bundle, when one dependency is modified.
• grunt-watchify caches the dependencies making the rebuild process very fast (useful for big projects).
• The configuration is different. You have the options of browserify plus keepalive and callback.
• The instance of browserify is passed to callback where you can use the api of browserify. Remember to return the instance.
• The keepalive is usefull if use grunt-watchify alone. It works like in grunt-contrib-connect#keepalive.

watchify: {
  options: {
    // defaults options used in b.bundle(opts)
    detectGlobals: true,
    insertGlobals: false,
    ignoreMissing: false,
    debug: false,
    standalone: false,

    keepalive: false,
    callback: function(b) {
      // configure the browserify instance here
      b.add(...);
      b.require(...);
      b.external(...);
      b.ignore(...);
      b.transform(...);

      // return it
      return b;
    }
  }
  example: {
    src: './src/**/*.js',
    dest: 'app/js/bundle.js'
  }
}

• The src makes difference between process and ./process:

watchify: {
  example: {
    src: ['process', './src/**/*.js'],
    dest: 'app/js/bundle.js'
  },
}

Your project files start usually with ./.

• You can use the glob only with your project files.

Examples

You find this example in the directory example.

• grunt-watchify builds the bundle.js and watches the dependencies.
• grunt-contrib-watch watches the bundle.js and triggers livereload when it changes.
• grunt-contrib-connect serves the files.
• grunt-contrib-livereload is used only for the livereload snippet.

/*
 * grunt-watchify
 * http://github.com/amiorin/grunt-watchify
 *
 * Copyright (c) 2013 Alberto Miorin, contributors
 * Licensed under the MIT license.
 */

'use strict';

var path = require('path');

var lrSnippet  = require('grunt-contrib-livereload/lib/utils').livereloadSnippet;
var mountFolder = function(connect, dir) {
  return connect.static(path.resolve(dir));
};

module.exports = function(grunt) {
  grunt.initConfig({

    watchify: {
      example: {
        src: './src/**/*.js',
        dest: 'app/js/bundle.js'
      },
    },

    watch: {
      app: {
        files: 'app/js/bundle.js',
        options: {
          livereload: true
        }
      }
    },

    connect: {
      options: {
        port: 9000,
        // Change this to '0.0.0.0' to access the server from outside.
        hostname: 'localhost'
      },
      livereload: {
        options: {
          middleware: function (connect) {
            return [
              lrSnippet,
              mountFolder(connect, 'app')
            ];
          }
        }
      }
    }
  });

  grunt.loadTasks('../tasks');

  grunt.loadNpmTasks('grunt-contrib-watch');
  grunt.loadNpmTasks('grunt-contrib-connect');
  grunt.loadNpmTasks('grunt-contrib-livereload');

  grunt.registerTask('default', ['watchify', 'connect', 'watch']);
};

How can you start grunt:

# with other tasks like connect and watch
# done() is called
grunt

# alone like watchify
# done() is *never* called
grunt watchify:example:keepalive

Credits

• browserify ;-)
• watchify for the cache code
• grunt-browserify for the tests