broccoli

What is broccoli?

Broccoli is a JavaScript build tool that allows you to define a build pipeline using a series of plugins. It is particularly well-suited for front-end development, enabling tasks such as file transformation, concatenation, and minification.

What are broccoli's main functionalities?

File Transformation

This code demonstrates how to use Broccoli to transform files. It uses the Funnel plugin to include only JavaScript files from the 'app' and 'vendor' directories and then merges these trees into a single output tree.

const Broccoli = require('broccoli');
const Funnel = require('broccoli-funnel');
const MergeTrees = require('broccoli-merge-trees');

let appTree = new Funnel('app', {
  include: ['**/*.js']
});

let vendorTree = new Funnel('vendor', {
  include: ['**/*.js']
});

let finalTree = new MergeTrees([appTree, vendorTree]);

module.exports = finalTree;

File Concatenation

This code demonstrates how to concatenate JavaScript files using the broccoli-concat plugin. It takes all JavaScript files in the 'app' directory and concatenates them into a single file, 'app.js', in the 'assets' directory.

const Broccoli = require('broccoli');
const Concat = require('broccoli-concat');

let appJs = new Concat('app', {
  outputFile: '/assets/app.js',
  inputFiles: ['**/*.js'],
  sourceMapConfig: { enabled: true }
});

module.exports = appJs;

File Minification

This code demonstrates how to minify JavaScript files using the broccoli-uglify-sourcemap plugin. It takes all JavaScript files in the 'app' directory and minifies them, with source maps enabled.

const Broccoli = require('broccoli');
const UglifyJS = require('broccoli-uglify-sourcemap');

let appJs = new UglifyJS('app', {
  mangle: true,
  compress: true,
  sourceMapConfig: { enabled: true }
});

module.exports = appJs;

Other packages similar to broccoli

gulp

Gulp is a toolkit for automating painful or time-consuming tasks in your development workflow. It uses a code-over-configuration approach, making it flexible and easy to use. Compared to Broccoli, Gulp has a larger ecosystem and more plugins available.

webpack

Webpack is a module bundler that takes modules with dependencies and generates static assets representing those modules. It is highly configurable and supports a wide range of plugins and loaders. Webpack is more powerful and complex compared to Broccoli, making it suitable for larger projects.

grunt

Grunt is a JavaScript task runner that automates repetitive tasks like minification, compilation, unit testing, and linting. It uses a configuration-over-code approach, which can be less flexible but easier to understand for beginners. Grunt has been largely superseded by Gulp and Webpack in recent years.

README

Broccoli

A fast, reliable asset pipeline, supporting constant-time rebuilds and compact build definitions. Comparable to the Rails asset pipeline in scope, though it runs on Node and is backend-agnostic. For background and architecture, see the introductory blog post.

For the command line interface, see broccoli-cli.

This is 0.x beta software.

Windows support appears to still be spotty. Reports (on GitHub or IRC) about specific failures are much appreciated -- we love collecting stack traces!

Installation

npm install --save-dev broccoli
npm install --global broccoli-cli

Getting Started

Check out broccoli-sample-app.

Brocfile.js

A Brocfile.js file in the project root contains the build specification. It should export a tree which may simply be the directory path (as a string). To build more advanced output trees you may want to use some of the plugins listed below.

The following would export the app/ subdirectory as a tree:

module.exports = 'app'

Alternatively, the following would export the app/ subdirectory as appkit/:

var pickFiles = require('broccoli-static-compiler')

module.exports = pickFiles('app', {
  srcDir: '/',
  destDir: 'appkit'
})

Plugins

You can find plugins on broccoliplugins.com or under the broccoli-plugin-keyword on npm.

Running Broccoli, Directly or Through Other Tools

• broccoli-timepiece
• grunt-broccoli
• grunt-broccoli-build

Helpers

Shared code for writing plugins.

• broccoli-caching-writer
• broccoli-filter
• broccoli-writer
• node-quick-temp

Plugin API Specification

Broccoli defines a single plugin API: a tree. A tree object represents a tree (directory hierarchy) of files that can be regenerated on each build.

By convention, plugins will export a function that takes one or more input trees, and returns an output tree object.

A tree object must supply two methods that will be called by Broccoli:

tree.read(readTree)

The .read method must return a path or a promise for a path, containing the tree contents.

It receives a readTree function argument from Broccoli. If .read needs to read other trees, it must not call otherTree.read directly. Instead, it must call readTree(otherTree), which returns a promise for the path containing otherTree's contents. It must not call readTree again until the promise has resolved; that is, it cannot call readTree on multiple trees in parallel.

Broccoli will call the .read method repeatedly to rebuild the tree, but at most once per rebuild; that is, if a tree is used multiple times in a build definition, Broccoli will reuse the path returned instead of calling .read again.

The .read method is responsible for creating a new temporary directory to store the tree contents in. Subsequent invocations of .read should remove temporary directories created in previous invocations.

tree.cleanup()

For every tree whose .read method was called one or more times, the .cleanup method will be called exactly once. No further .read calls will follow .cleanup. The .cleanup method should remove all temporary directories created by .read.

Debugging

Errors

When it is known which file caused a given error, plugin authors can make errors easier to track down by setting the .file property on the generated error.

This .file property is used by both the console logging, and the server middleware to display more helpful error messages.

Descriptive Naming

As of 0.11 Broccoli prints a log of any trees that took a significant amount of the total build time to assist in finding which trees are consuming the largest build times.

To determine the name to be printed Broccoli will first look for a .description property on the plugin instance then fall back to using the plugin constructor's name.

Security

• Do not run broccoli serve on a production server. While this is theoretically safe, it exposes a needlessly large amount of attack surface just for serving static assets. Instead, use broccoli build to precompile your assets, and serve the static files from a web server of your choice.

Get Help

• IRC: #broccolijs on Freenode. Ask your question and stick around for a few hours. Someone will see your message eventually.
• Twitter: mention @jo_liss with your question
• GitHub: Open an issue on a specific plugin repository, or on this repository for general questions.

License

Broccoli was originally written by Jo Liss and is licensed under the MIT license.

The Broccoli logo was created by Samantha Penner (Miric) and is licensed under CC0 1.0.

Changelog

0.13.4

• More detailed error message when a tree object is invalid
• Watcher no longer rebuilds forever when a very early build error occurs