webpack-livereload-plugin

LiveReload when running webpack --watch

Installation

Install the package

npm install --save-dev webpack-livereload-plugin

Add the plugin to your webpack config

// webpack.config.js

var LiveReloadPlugin = require('webpack-livereload-plugin');

module.exports = {
  plugins: [
    new LiveReloadPlugin(options)
  ]
}

Add a script tag to your page pointed at the livereload server

<script src="http://localhost:35729/livereload.js"></script>

Options

protocol - (Default: protocol of the page, either http or https) Protocol for livereload <script> src attribute value
port - (Default: 35729) The desired port for the livereload server. If you define port 0, an available port will be searched for, starting from 35729.
hostname - (Default: hostname of the page, like localhost or 10.0.2.2) The desired hostname for the appended <script> (if present) to point to
appendScriptTag - (Default: false) Append livereload <script> automatically to <head>.
ignore - (Default: null) RegExp of files to ignore. Null value means ignore nothing. It is also possible to define an array and use multiple anymatch patterns.
delay - (Default: 0) amount of milliseconds by which to delay the live reload (in case build takes longer)
useSourceHash - (Default: false) create hash for each file source and only notify livereload if hash has changed
useSourceSize - (Default: false) check size for each file source and only notify livereload if size has changed (Faster than useSourceHash but it has a downside. If file size hasn't changed no reload is triggered. For example if color has changed from #000000 to #ffffff no reload will be triggered!)

Why?

Yes, there's already webpack-dev-server that handles live reloading and more complex scenarios. This project aims to solve the case where you want assets served by your app server, but still want reloads triggered from webpack's build pipeline.

HTTPS

If you set key, cert, or pfx options, they'll get passed through to tiny-lr as options and it will serve over HTTPS. You'll also also set protocol to https.

FAQ

Webpack always generates js and css together

If your webpack is always generating js and css files together you could set useSourceHash to true to generate a hash for each changed asset and it should prevent multiple reloads.

Alternatively if this slows your build process you could set liveCSS and liveImg to false to prevent multiple reloads.

statianzo / webpack-livereload-plugin

readme