esbuild-live-reload VS esbuild-rails

Today we created an esbuild config file that enables live reloading (but not HMR) for our jsbundling-rails powered Rails application. As I mentioned at the beginning of this article, this is very much an experiment and this configuration has not been tested on an application of any meaningful size. You can find the finished code for this example application on Github.

Here's the setup I use for reloading with esbuild: https://github.com/excid3/esbuild-rails/blob/main/examples/esbuild.config.mjs

// config/esbuild.mjs import path from 'path' import esbuild from 'esbuild' import rails from 'esbuild-rails' import babel from 'esbuild-plugin-babel' esbuild .build({ bundle: true, // Path to application.js folder absWorkingDir: path.join(process.cwd(), 'app/javascript'), // Application.js file, used by Rails to bundle all JS Rails code entryPoints: ['application.js'], // Destination of JS bundle, points to the Rails JS Asset folder outdir: path.join(process.cwd(), 'app/assets/builds'), // Enables watch option. Will regenerate JS bundle if files are changed watch: process.argv.includes('--watch'), // Split option is disabled, only needed when using multiple input files // More information: https://esbuild.github.io/api/#splitting (change it if using multiple inputs) splitting: false, chunkNames: 'chunks/[name]-[hash]', // Remove unused JS methods treeShaking: true, // Adds mapping information so web browser console can map bundle errors to the corresponding // code line and column in the real code // More information: https://esbuild.github.io/api/#sourcemap sourcemap: process.argv.includes('--development'), // Compresses bundle // More information: https://esbuild.github.io/api/#minify minify: process.argv.includes('--production'), // Removes all console lines from bundle // More information: https://esbuild.github.io/api/#drop drop: process.argv.includes('--production') ? ['console'] : [], // Build command log output: https://esbuild.github.io/api/#log-level logLevel: 'info', // Set of ESLint plugins plugins: [ // Plugin to easily import Rails JS files, such as Stimulus controllers and channels // https://github.com/excid3/esbuild-rails rails(), // Configures bundle with Babel. Babel configuration defined in babel.config.js // Babel translates JS code to make it compatible with older JS versions. // https://github.com/nativew/esbuild-plugin-babel babel() ] }) .catch(() => process.exit(1))

Finally, if you're using esbuild with Rails and Stimulus, you'll probably find the esbuild-rails plugin from Chris Oliver useful.