Feri

An easy to use build tool for web files.

Incrementally clean, build, and watch with little to no configuration required.

Navigation

• Features
• Core Concepts
  • One Source, One Destination
  • File Extension Based
  • Include Files
  • Customizable
• Install
• Upgrade
• Command Line
• Quickstart Guide
• Advanced
  • Custom Config File
  • Custom Build Task
  • Unique File Types
  • Feri Extension
  • Edge Cases
  • API
• License

Features

• Clean, Build, and Watch
• Command Line and API
• Concatenate
• GIF, JPG, PNG, SVG, and WEBP
• HTML, CSS, and JavaScript
• Markdown
• Multilingual

Core Concepts

One Source, One Destination

A single source directory which builds/compiles/minifies into a single destination directory.

Clean: Destination files that do not have a source equivalent are removed during cleaning.

Build: If a source file is missing a destination equivalent, build the file. If a source file is newer than a destination equivalent, build the file.

Watch: Run clean and build tasks in reaction to file system changes.

File Extension Based

A single plan of action for each file type. CSS files are minified. JPG files are losslessly optimized. Markdown files are compiled, then minified, and so on. Each extension can have its own unique build process but all files with that extension are treated equally.

Include Files

Any file prefixed with an underscore _ is considered an include file. Include files do not get directly published from source to destination. Instead, include file contents are only published when a file that can leverage includes is published.

Customizable

Although capable as is, Feri is designed to be extremely customizable. Using the API or a custom config file allows you to not only change options but even replace core functions.

Install

Make sure you have Node version 14 or greater. Depending on your operating system, you may also need to install python or other tools used by dependencies that need to be compiled.

Install Feri globally as a command line tool, accessible from anywhere.

npm install -g feri

Install Feri locally in your project's node_modules folder for API use and/or command line use from within your project only.

npm install feri

Either process above may display warnings about optional dependencies. These warnings can be safely ignored as those dependencies were not needed for your particular OS.

Upgrade

You can always upgrade to the latest version of Feri by re-running the global or local install commands.

If you are unsure if an upgrade is available, run the following for a global install.

feri --version

Or the following for a local install.

npx feri --version

The above commands will provide additional upgrade information if a newer version is available. Otherwise, just the currently installed version will be listed.

Command Line

If installed globally, you can see what command line options are available with:

feri --help

Or locally with:

npx feri --help

More information is available in the command line documentation.

Quickstart Guide

Assuming Feri is installed globally, the quickest way to start a new project is to use the init command.

feri --init

This will create a source and dest folder along with a custom config file. To make sure everything works, place some files in the source folder. Now run feri from the directory where you can see the source and destination folders. After a short time, your published files should appear in the dest folder.

You'll need to run feri every time you want to clean and/or build new files. Once you are comfortable with that pattern, try running the following command instead.

feri --watch

Now Feri will stay active, watching your source folder for changes and automatically run the appropriate clean or build tasks depending on activity in the source folder. Neat!

Advanced

Advanced topics for those that like to tinker.

Custom Config File

Create a custom config file to set your preferred options, add custom build tasks, or leverage the API.

Custom Build Task

Feri thinks you should be able to grab nearly any npm module and make a custom build task out of it without too much effort. Are .snazzy files the latest way to write CSS? No need to wait for a plugin. Use the latest tech, right away.

Unique File Types

Feri comes with built-in support for unique file types such as br, concat, gz, and jss.

Feri Extension

Reload a web browser tab when files change with the Feri Extension for Chrome, Edge, and Firefox.

Edge Cases

Some edge cases you may want to be aware of.

API

Leverage or even replace anything behind the scenes with full access to the API.

License

CC0 1.0 Universal

This work has been marked as dedicated to the public domain.