@MomsFriendlyDevCo/Gulpy

Like Gulp but with a few extras.

This module fixes a few irritations with the new Gulp 4 standard and makes some gulp task definitions easier to read.

The intention here is to remain as-close-as-possible to the actual Gulp release while still supporting some of the nicer syntax (IMHO) of Gulp@3.

Why?

• Call-forwards - Like any company with a large sprawling codebase we separate our gulp files up into multiple chunks and sometimes things like calling between these gulp tasks is required. The Gulp@4 standard doesn't really seem to take this into account so the gulp.task(id, func) invocation has to be called in an exact order or you get an error. This can be fixed with some workarounds but even the official Gulp docs say this is likely to be abandoned at some future point.
• Non-Async functions - I honestly see no earthly reason why Gulp@4 now insists that all functions should be async except as an aesthetic choice. Forgetting to add the magical async bit before a function when it just returns an inline operation seems extremely arbitrary.
• Task prerequisites - Yes I know you can use gulp.task(id, gulp.series(foo, bar, baz)) to show the execution order but if the last one of these is a function things get messy. I much prefer the gulp.task(id, [prereqs...], func) way of doing things
• Run-once tasks - An easier way to specify that a task should be executed only once, even if called multiple times as a pre-requisite.
• Emit "finish" event for cleanup - I've honestly no idea how cleaning up after multiple tasks is not a problem to solve but disconnecting from the database and so on should be handled properly
• Tidier task display - Automatically hides all weird "Parallel", "Series" anonymous tasks unless --verbose is specified

Installation & Usage

This module works as a mixin of Gulp. Set your gulp instance to it to inherit regular Gulp behaviour as well as the extra features and fixes of this module.

1. Simply install the NPM

npm install @momsfriendlydevco/gulpy

2. And include at the top of your main gulpfile where you would normally reference gulp:

var gulp = require('@momsfriendlydevoco/gulpy');

gulp.task(id, func); // etc...

Debugging

This module uses the Debug NPM package and responds to gulpy.

To see verbose debugging output simply set DEBUG=gulpy or any valid glob expression.

> DEBUG=gulpy gulp taskID

Features

Call-forwards

Calling a task that hasn't been defined yet is now wrapped in a function which defers until a later point.

var gulp = require('@momsfriendlydevco/gulpy');

gulp.task('foo', gulp.series('bar', async ()=> console.log('Out:Foo')));
gulp.task('bar', gulp.series('baz', async ()=> console.log('Out:Bar')));
gulp.task('baz', async ()=> console.log('Out:Baz'));

This is also possible with the undertaker-forward-reference registry but the author has no intention to keep that up-to-date.

Non-async functions

No idea why Gulp@4 demands this but if you declare a Gulp task without the magical async it will now be wrapped in a promise on your behalf.

var gulp = require('@momsfriendlydevco/gulpy');

gulp.task('foo', gulp.series('bar', ()=> console.log('Out:Foo')));
gulp.task('bar', gulp.series('baz', ()=> console.log('Out:Bar')));
gulp.task('baz', ()=> console.log('Out:Baz'));

Task chaining

Easily specify task-prerequisites and execution order.

var gulp = require('@momsfriendlydevco/gulpy');

gulp.task('default', ['foo']);
gulp.task('foo', 'bar', ()=> console.log('Out:Foo'));
gulp.task('bar', ['baz'], ()=> console.log('Out:Bar'));
gulp.task('baz', 'baz:real');
gulp.task('baz:real', ()=> console.log('Out:Baz'));

Gulpy shorthand	Gulp@4 equivalent	Description
gulp.task(id, func)	gulp.task(id, func)	Standard gulp.task() usage
gulp.task(id, 'foo')	gulp.task(id, gulp.series('foo'))	Redirect a task to another
gulp.task(id, 'foo', 'bar')	gulp.task(id, gulp.series('foo', 'bar'))	Set up a chain of tasks to be run in series by their ID
gulp.task(id, ['foo', 'bar'], func)	gulp.task(id, gulp.series('foo', 'bar'', func))	Run a task with prerequisites

Run-once

To specify that a task should be run only once during the life of the Gulp process simply suffix each .task call with .once:

gulp.task.once('setup', ()=> ...);
gulp.task('foo', ['setup'], ()=> ...);
gulp.task('bar', ['setup'], ()=> ...);
gulp.task('build', ['foo', 'bar']); // 'setup' runs only once, followed by 'foo', 'bar', in parallel

Event management

Gulpy uses eventer to manage promisable events at each stage of the lifecycle.

gulp.on('finish', ()=> ...)

Supported events are:

Event	Args	Description
start	()	Emitted on the very first task (or when the task buffer is empty)
taskStart	(task)	Emitted at the start of each new task with the task object
taskEnd	(task)	Emitted at the end of a task with the task object
finish	()	Emitted at the very end of the task stack (or when the task buffer empties)

API

This module is a mixin to Gulp which extends some existing Gulp functions to work with the features listed above. It also provides the following extra functionality in addition to the standard Gulp API.

gulpy.isGulpy

Always true, this can be used as a check to see if gulpy.mutate() has been called. If it has then gulp.isGulpy will also be true.

gulpy.log(...msgs)

Log output using the same style used when rendering task start / ends.

gulpy.colors

Chalk instance.

gulpy.mutate()

Overwrite the gulpy mutated functions in the gulp, effectively turning every require('gulp') call into require('@momsfriendlydevco/gulpy'). Only use this if you know what you are doing as this may have side-effects with downstream modules.

gulpy.run(...tasks)

Inline replacement for gulp.series() and gulp.parallel(). This funciton is used to process all arguments after the task alias in gulp.task()

This function can take any number of the following arguments:

• (string) already declared tasks
• (string) future tasks (i.e. not yet present)
• Async functions
• Promises + Promise factories
• Callback functions
• Plain functions
• Array of any of the above (child items executed in parallel)
• An event-emitter (include Gulp / Vinyl chains) - if an .on() function is found we wait for end to be signalled before continuing

// Run 'Foo' then 'Bar', then 'Baz'
gulp.run('foo', 'bar', 'baz');

// Run 'Foo' then 'Bar' + 'Baz' (the latter two in parallel
gulp.run('foo', ['bar', 'baz']);

// Declare a task 'foo' which runs 'bar' then 'baz' + 'quz' in parallel
gulp.task('foo', 'bar', ['baz', 'quz']);

gulpy.start(...tasks)

Alias of gulp.run()

gulpy.hasUserTask(task)

Check if task was specifically requested by the user - via the CLI.

Examples:

• If run with gulp foo then gulpy.hasUserTask('foo') //=true
• If run with gulp bar then gulpy.hasUserTask('foo') //=false (even if bar calls 'foo' internally)

gulpy.settings

Object of settings used by Gulpy.

Available options:

Setting	Type	Default	Description
futureTaskTries	Number	20	How many tries before giving up on finding a future task alias as-yet-to-be-declared
futureTaskWait	Number	50	The millisecond wait between each future task alias attempt
logging	Boolean	true	Whether to call any of the log functions when running tasks
loggingOnce	Boolean	false	Whether to log any tasks marked as .once(), these are off by default as they are typically utility functions
taskStart	Function	See code	Called as (task) when a task starts, override to change logging
taskEnd	Function	See code	Called as (task) when a task ends, override to change logging

gulpy.gulp

The original gulp instance if raw access is required.