autoreload-gulp

Reloads gulp process when gulpfile.js or an imported relative dependency change

Goal

When developping, you sometimes edit your gulpfile to add new tasks or refine/refactor existing ones. At that point, you have to abort your TDD/BDD processes and restart them. This module makes restarting them easy by watching your gulpfiles and their dependencies. Whenever one of them is modified, it aborts the process and relaunches a new one.

Usage

To use the module, just wrap your target tasks with the function autoreload, which is the default import of the module.

If you have the gulpfile:

import gulp from 'gulp';
import autoreload from 'autoreload-gulp';

gulp.task('watch', done => {
  console.log('gulpfile1');
  gulp.watch('src/main.js', () => gulp.src('src/main.js')
    .pipe(gulp.dest('build')));
  done();
});

gulp.task('default', autoreload('watch'));

And run:

$ gulp
[12:36:36] Requiring external module babel-core/register
[12:36:36] Working directory changed to ~/Projets/autoreload-gulp/build
[12:36:37] Using gulpfile ~/Projets/autoreload-gulp/build/gulpfile.babel.js
[12:36:37] Starting 'default'...
[12:36:38] Finished 'default' after 67 ms
[12:36:39] Requiring external module babel-core/register
[12:36:40] Using gulpfile ~/Projets/autoreload-gulp/build/gulpfile.babel.js
[12:36:40] Starting 'watch'...
gulpfile1
[12:36:40] Finished 'watch' after 15 ms

Then modify the gulpfile:

import gulp from 'gulp';
import autoreload from 'autoreload-gulp';
import babel from 'gulp-babel'; // Added

gulp.task('watch', done => {
  console.log('gulpfile2'); // Changed
  gulp.watch('src/main.js', () => gulp.src('src/main.js')
    .pipe(babel()) // Added
    .pipe(gulp.dest('build')));
  done();
});

gulp.task('default', autoreload('watch'));

Without your intervention, you get:

[12:36:40] Starting 'spawnChild'...
[12:36:40] Finished 'spawnChild' after 10 ms
[12:36:41] Requiring external module babel-core/register
[12:36:42] Using gulpfile ~/Projets/autoreload-gulp/build/gulpfile.babel.js
[12:36:42] Starting 'watch'...
gulpfile2
[12:36:42] Finished 'watch' after 13 ms

Now messing with the gulpfile:

import gulp from 'gulp';
import autoreload from 'autoreload-gulp';
import babel from 'gulp-babel';

gulp.task('watch', done => {
  console.log('gulpfile3'); // Changed
  throw new Error('Test error'); // Changed
  done();
});

gulp.task('default', autoreload('watch'));

You get:

[12:36:43] Starting 'spawnChild'...
[12:36:43] Finished 'spawnChild' after 17 ms
[12:36:44] Requiring external module babel-core/register
[12:36:44] Using gulpfile ~/Projets/autoreload-gulp/build/gulpfile.babel.js
[12:36:44] Starting 'watch'...
gulpfile3

And after fixing:

Starting 'spawnChild'...
[12:36:45] Finished 'spawnChild' after 7.28 ms
[12:36:46] Requiring external module babel-core/register
[12:36:47] Using gulpfile ~/Projets/autoreload-gulp/build/gulpfile.babel.js
[12:36:47] Starting 'watch'...
gulpfile1
[12:36:47] Finished 'watch' after 12 ms

Importing tasks or helper functions

If there is in the same directory as your gulpfile, a directory called gulp, gulp-tasks or gulp_tasks, the files it contains will be watched too and the process reloaded if one of them is modified. autoreload expects only one of these names to be in use. It will possibly watch the wrong files if you use the names concurrently.

In the following example, the process will be reloaded if ./gulp/tasks.js is edited.

import gulp from 'gulp';
import autoreload from 'autoreload-gulp';
import './gulp/tasks';

gulp.task('default', autoreload('watch'));

Custom include directory for gulp process

If a 2nd argument is specified for function autoreload, it is considered to be the path to a custom directory where to find the local files included in the gulpfile, overriding the default gulp, gulp-tasks or gulp_tasks.

import gulp from 'gulp';
import autoreload from 'autoreload-gulp';

import './build/gulp-tasks/task1';
import './build/gulp-tasks/task2';
import './build/gulp-tasks/task3';

gulp.task('default', autoreload('watch', 'build/gulp-tasks'));

License

autoreload-gulp is MIT licensed.

© 2016-2017 Jason Lenoble