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.

Installation

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

Brocfile.js

A Brocfile.js file in the project root contains the build specification. It should export a tree.

A tree can be any string representing a directory path, like 'app' or 'src'. Or a tree can be an object conforming to the Plugin API Specification. A Brocfile.js will usually directly work with only directory paths, and then use the plugins in the Plugins section to generate transformed trees.

The following simple Brocfile.js would export the app/ subdirectory as a tree:

module.exports = 'app'

With that Brocfile, the build result would equal the contents of the app tree in your project folder. For example, say your project contains these files:

app
├─ main.js
└─ helper.js
Brocfile.js
package.json
…

Running broccoli build the-output (a command provided by broccoli-cli) would generate the following folder within your project folder:

the-output
├─ main.js
└─ helper.js

Using plugins in a Brocfile.js

The following Brocfile.js exports the app/ subdirectory as appkit/:

var Funnel = require('broccoli-funnel')

module.exports = new Funnel('app', {
  destDir: 'appkit'
})

That example uses the plugin broccoli-funnel. In order for the require call to work, you must first put the plugin in your devDependencies and install it, with

npm install --save-dev broccoli-funnel

With the above Brocfile.js and the file tree from the previous example, running broccoli build the-output would generate the following folder:

the-output
└─ appkit
   ├─ main.js
   └─ helper.js

Plugins

You can find plugins 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-plugin
• broccoli-caching-writer
• broccoli-filter

Plugin API Specification

See docs/node-api.md.

Also see docs/broccoli-1-0-plugin-api.md on how to upgrade from Broccoli 0.x to the Broccoli 1.x API.

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.