grunt-watchify

Grunt task for node-browserify.

Getting Started

This plugin requires Grunt ~0.4.0 and Node >=0.8.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');

Common errors

Running "watchify:source" (watchify) task
Fatal error: module "src/main.js" not found in require()

Is the src attribute starting with ./? grunt-watchify is different from grunt-browserify. It follows the nodejs require.resolve() algorithm.

...
{
  src: './src/main.js'
  ...
}
...

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 useful if you use grunt-watchify alone. It works like in grunt-contrib-connect#keepalive.

grunt.initConfig({
  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:

grunt.initConfig({
  watchify: {
    example: {
      src: ['process', './src/**/*.js'],
      dest: 'app/js/bundle.js'
    },
  }
});

Your project files usually start with ./.

• You can use the glob only with your project files and not for the modules in node_modules.

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