ChunksWebpackPlugin

The chunks-webpack-plugin creates HTML files with entry points and chunks relations to serve your webpack bundles. It is suitable with multi-page applications that contain multiple entry points.

Since webpack 4, SplitChunksPlugin offers the possibility to optimizes all chunks. It can be particularly powerful, because it means that chunks can be shared even between async and non-async chunks. See the webpack documentation of splitChunks.chunks for details.

splitChunks.chunks option can be set to automatically generate new chunks associated with an entry point. For example, entry points a.js and b.js share common code with the file vendors~a~b.js.

With multiple entry points, it can be difficult to identify relation between the auto-generated chunks and entry points.

chunks-webpack-plugin parses the webpack compilation entry points to get all files associated with the entry points. Then, it generates HTML files which include all assets filtered by an entry point and thechunks-manifest.json file.

Zero configuration

It works without configuration. For advanced usage, see the using configuration section.

Installation

chunks-webpack-plugin is available on npm as chunks-webpack-plugin and as chunks-webpack-plugin on GitHub.

npm install chunks-webpack-plugin --save-dev

yarn add chunks-webpack-plugin --dev

Warning chunks-webpack-plugin@10 is ESM only.

Note Minimum supported Node.js version is 16.20.0 and Webpack >=5.10.3.

Example

The project includes a minimalist example in the ./example directory. Run the npm run build:example command to execute the Webpack example and see the plugin's implementation in action.

Basic usage

chunks-webpack-plugin will generate two HTML files for each entry point. Each filename contains the entry point name, the {{entry}} placeholder is automatically replaced.

• {{entry}}-styles.html: contains all HTML <link> tags
• {{entry}}-scripts.html: contains all HTML <script> tags

First, let's add the plugin to the webpack configuration.

webpack.config.js

import ChunksWebpackPlugin from 'chunks-webpack-plugin';

export default {
  plugins: [new ChunksWebpackPlugin()]
};

HTML files are built in the output path directory with the rest of the webpack compilation.

Now you can include the generated HTML files into your HTML page templates. You can do it with e.g. Twig.

main-styles.html

<link rel="stylesheet" href="main.css" />

main-scripts.html

<script defer src="main.js"></script>

Using a configuration

You can pass a configuration object to chunks-webpack-plugin to override the default settings.

filename

Type:

type filename = string;

Default: '[name]-[type].html'

Tells the plugin whether to personalize the filename of the generated files. Files are processed by the webpack compilation and generated in the output path directory. The placeholder [name] is automatically replaced by entry points names and [type] by styles|scripts.

new ChunksWebpackPlugin({
  filename: 'templates/[name]-[type].html'
});

Note The filename can contain directories, which will be created automatically.

templateStyle

Type:

type templateStyle = (name: string, entryName: string) => string;

Default:

(name) => `<link rel="stylesheet" href="${name}" />`;

Tells the plugin whether to personalize the default template for the HTML <style> tags. For example, add additional attributes or a CDN prefix.

export default {
  plugins: [
    new ChunksWebpackPlugin({
      templateStyle: (name) => `<link rel="stylesheet" href="https://cdn.domain.com${name}" />`
    })
  ]
};

templateScript

Type:

type templateScript = (name: string, entryName: string) => string;

Default:

(name) => `<script defer src="${name}"></script>`;

Tells the plugin whether to personalize the default template for the HTML <script> tags. For example, add additional attributes or a CDN prefix.

export default {
  plugins: [
    new ChunksWebpackPlugin({
      templateScript: (name) => `<script defer src="https://cdn.domain.com${name}"></script>`
    })
  ]
};

generateChunksManifest

Type:

type generateChunksManifest = boolean;

Default: false

Tells the plugin whether to generate the chunks-manifest.json. The file contains the list of all chunks grouped by entry points. See the chunks-manifest.json example.

export default {
  plugins: [
    new ChunksWebpackPlugin({
      generateChunksManifest: true
    })
  ]
};

generateChunksFiles

Type:

type generateChunksFiles = boolean;

Default: true

Tells the plugin whether to generate the HTML files.

export default {
  plugins: [
    new ChunksWebpackPlugin({
      generateChunksFiles: false
    })
  ]
};

Warning When set to false, HTML files will not be generated. It can only be useful together with generateChunksManifest option set to true for custom generation of the HTML files.

Multiple entrypoints example

Example of the webpack configuration with multiple entry points which share common code with the splitChunks option.

import ChunksWebpackPlugin from 'chunks-webpack-plugin';
import path from 'node:path';

const __filename = fileURLToPath(import.meta.url);
const __dirname = path.dirname(__filename);

export default {
  entry: {
    home: 'home.js',
    news: 'news.js'
  },
  output: {
    filename: 'bundle.js',
    path: path.resolve(__dirname, './dist')
  },
  plugins: [new ChunksWebpackPlugin()],
  optimization: {
    splitChunks: {
      chunks: 'all'
    }
  }
};

The plugin will generate all files in the output path directory:

home-styles.html

<link rel="stylesheet" href="vendors~home~news.css" />
<link rel="stylesheet" href="home.css" />

home-scripts.html

<script defer src="vendors~home~news.js"></script>
<script defer src="home.js"></script>

news-styles.html

<link rel="stylesheet" href="vendors~home~news.css" />
<link rel="stylesheet" href="news.css" />

news-scripts.html

<script defer src="vendors~home~news.js"></script>
<script defer src="news.js"></script>

License

chunks-webpack-plugin is licensed under the MIT License.

Created with ♥ by @yoriiis.