Simple lib for parallel Webpack builds

WARNING: the lib is not tested currently and may not be stable

Motivation

The existing library parallel-webpack is not maintained, has huge codebase, does not support custom communication between processes, does not show low-level errors, requires separate file with configs.

This one is a light alternative based on internal Node.js child_process fork

Usage

import { ChildProcess } from 'child_process';
import { run, TypeConfig } from 'webpack-parallel-simple';

let childProcesses: Array<ChildProcess> = [];

const parallelConfig: TypeConfig = {
    onInit(processes: Array<ChildProcess>) { childProcesses = processes; },
    bailOnError: false,
    configPaths: [
        path.resolve(__dirname, './client.config'),
        path.resolve(__dirname, './server.config'),
    ],
    afterFirstBuild() {
        childProcesses.forEach((childProcess) => {
            childProcess.send('SOME_MESSAGE');
        });
        
        // ... maybe start Node.js server, browser reload service, file generation service
    },
    execOnConfigRead: `require('@babel/register')({ extensions: ['.ts'] });`,
};

run(parallelConfig);

Params

bailOnError - if true all processes will be terminated on the first error

configPaths - array of config files' paths

afterFirstBuild (optional) - callback that called after first compiler run on every config passed

execOnConfigRead (optional) - some expression evaluated before config's read. Useful when you use modern JS or TS syntax not understandable by used Node.js version

onInit (optional) - passes instances of forked processes so you are able to send messages to your webpack processes and get answers