Build proxy

Express.js middleware for rebuilding resources on demand

Intercept requests to files, run task to build them and block request until it will be finished. This is like webpack-dev-server, but framework-agnostic.

Getting started

Install via npm:

npm install build-proxy --save-dev

Then define some routes which you need to intercept and provide callback with action for your task runner:

var proxy = require('build-proxy');
 
proxy({
    baseDir: 'dist/',
    routes: {
        '**/*.js': 'scripts'
    }
}, function(action, params, done) {
    // run Gulp task 'scripts' to process get your js from coffee, for example
    gulp.start(action, done);
});

This code will run a webserver on http://localhost:3000, and it will call your action every time, when you try to get some resource. It means that you don't need to keep some watcher daemon, you will get actual resource every time. Instead of watchers pattern, which works after each save, here it will be built only when it is really needed.

You can pass several routes for different purposes:

var proxy = require('build-proxy');
 
proxy({
    baseDir: 'dist/',
    routes: {
        '/': 'main-page',
        '/gallery': 'gallery-page',
    }
}, function(action, params, done) {
    // build starts only for these resources that you actually need now 
    gulp.start(action, done);
});

Note that you also have to describe gulp task for each page on your own.

Also you will get route params in the second argument. This is just request params from Express.js. You can use it to determine, which file should be built now.

proxy({
    baseDir: 'dist/',
    routes: {
        '/:page': 'page'
    }
}, function(action, params, done) {
    // run something like 'main-page-build'
    gulp.start(params.page + '-page-build', done)
});

Grunt and other build systems

You do not need to use Gulp! Here is Browserify:

proxy({
    baseDir: 'dist/',
    routes: {
        '**/*.js': 'scripts'
    }
}, function(action, params, done) {
    browserify({/*config*/}).bundle(done);
});

Grunt doesn't have programmatically API with callback (see issue 1184), use child_process for it

proxy({
    baseDir: 'dist/',
    routes: {
        '**/*.js': 'scripts'
    }
}, function(action, params, done) {
    // build scripts via grunt
    require('child_process').execFile('grunt', [action], done);
});

You even can use it with webpack although it has its own solution:

proxy({
    baseDir: 'dist/',
    routes: {
        '**/*.js': 'scripts'
    }
}, function(action, params, done) {
    webpack({/*config*/}, done);
});

You can use whatever which can be called as function.

API and options

proxy(options, callback) – create and start an express app for building and serving

proxy.middleware(options, callback) – returns a middleware, so you can use it in your app

Supported options

• baseDir (required) – directory, where proxy will look for result of build. Usually the same as destination directory in your build config
• port (default: 3000) – if you don't want to run server on defuault port, run on any another
• routes (required) – key-value pair, defines your actions for routes. Key can be any valid express url expression. Value will be passed into your callback, when attempt to this route will be occurred

Epilogue

Any help and questions will be appreciated in issues to this repo