live-server
Advanced tools
This is a little development server with live reload capability. Use it for hacking your HTML/JavaScript/CSS files, but not for deploying the final site.
There are two reasons for using this:
file:// protocol due to security restrictions, i.e. you need a server if your site fetches content through JavaScript.You don't need to install any browser plugins or manually add code snippets to your pages for the reload functionality to work, see "How it works" section below for more information. If you don't want/need the live reload, you should probably use something even simpler, like the following Python-based one-liner:
python -m SimpleHTTPServer
You need node.js and npm. You should probably install this globally.
Npm way
npm install -g live-server
Manual way
git clone https://github.com/tapio/live-server
cd live-server
npm install # Local dependencies if you want to hack
npm install -g # Install globally
Issue the command live-server in your project's directory. Alternatively you can add the path to serve as a command line parameter.
This will automatically launch the default browser. When you make a change to any file, the browser will reload the page - unless it was a CSS file in which case the changes are applied without a reload.
Command line parameters:
--port=NUMBER - select port to use, default: PORT env var or 8080--host=ADDRESS - select host address to bind to, default: IP env var or 0.0.0.0 ("any address")--no-browser - suppress automatic web browser launching--browser=BROWSER - specify browser to use instead of system default--quiet | -q - suppress logging--verbose | -V - more logging (logs all requests, shows all listening IPv4 interfaces, etc.)--open=PATH - launch browser to PATH instead of server root--watch=PATH - comma-separated string of paths to exclusively watch for changes (default: watch everything)--ignore=PATH - comma-separated string of paths to ignore (anymatch-compatible definition)--ignorePattern=RGXP - Regular expression of files to ignore (ie .*\.jade) (DEPRECATED in favor of --ignore)--no-css-inject - reload page on CSS change, rather than injecting changed CSS--middleware=PATH - path to .js file exporting a middleware function to add; can be a name without path nor extension to reference bundled middlewares in middleware folder--entry-file=PATH - serve this file (server root relative) in place of missing files (useful for single page apps)--mount=ROUTE:PATH - serve the paths contents under the defined route (multiple definitions possible)--spa - translate requests from /abc to /#/abc (handy for Single Page Apps)--wait=MILLISECONDS - (default 100ms) wait for all changes, before reloading--htpasswd=PATH - Enables http-auth expecting htpasswd file located at PATH--cors - Enables CORS for any origin (reflects request origin, requests with credentials are supported)--https=PATH - PATH to a HTTPS configuration module--https-module=MODULE_NAME - Custom HTTPS module (e.g. spdy)--proxy=ROUTE:URL - proxy all requests for ROUTE to URL--help | -h - display terse usage hint and exit--version | -v - display version and exitDefault options:
If a file ~/.live-server.json exists it will be loaded and used as default options for live-server on the command line. See "Usage from node" for option names.
var liveServer = require("live-server");
var params = {
port: 8181, // Set the server port. Defaults to 8080.
host: "0.0.0.0", // Set the address to bind to. Defaults to 0.0.0.0 or process.env.IP.
root: "/public", // Set root directory that's being served. Defaults to cwd.
open: false, // When false, it won't load your browser by default.
ignore: 'scss,my/templates', // comma-separated string for paths to ignore
file: "index.html", // When set, serve this file (server root relative) for every 404 (useful for single-page applications)
wait: 1000, // Waits for all changes, before reloading. Defaults to 0 sec.
mount: [['/components', './node_modules']], // Mount a directory to a route.
logLevel: 2, // 0 = errors only, 1 = some, 2 = lots
middleware: [function(req, res, next) { next(); }] // Takes an array of Connect-compatible middleware that are injected into the server middleware stack
};
liveServer.start(params);
In order to enable HTTPS support, you'll need to create a configuration module.
The module must export an object that will be used to configure a HTTPS server.
The keys are the same as the keys in options for tls.createServer.
For example:
var fs = require("fs");
module.exports = {
cert: fs.readFileSync(__dirname + "/server.cert"),
key: fs.readFileSync(__dirname + "/server.key"),
passphrase: "12345"
};
If using the node API, you can also directly pass a configuration object instead of a path to the module.
To get HTTP/2 support one can provide a custom HTTPS module via --https-module CLI parameter (httpsModule option for Node.js script). Be sure to install the module first.
HTTP/2 unencrypted mode is not supported by browsers, thus not supported by live-server. See this question and can I use page on HTTP/2 for more details.
For example from CLI(bash):
live-server \
--https=path/to/https.conf.js \
--https-module=spdy \
my-app-folder/
--wait=MS option. Where MS is time in milliseconds to wait before issuing a reload.The server is a simple node app that serves the working directory and its subdirectories. It also watches the files for changes and when that happens, it sends a message through a web socket connection to the browser instructing it to reload. In order for the client side to support this, the server injects a small piece of JavaScript code to each requested html file. This script establishes the web socket connection and listens to the reload requests. CSS files can be refreshed without a full page reload by finding the referenced stylesheets from the DOM and tricking the browser to fetch and parse them again.
We welcome contributions! See CONTRIBUTING.md for details.
--https-module=MODULE_NAME to specify custom HTTPS module (e.g. spdy) (@pavel)--no-css-inject to reload page on css change instead of injecting the changes (@kylecordes)--middleware parameter to use external middlewaresmiddleware API parameter now also accepts strings similar to --middleware--ignore now accepts regexps and globs, --ignorePattern deprecated (@pavel)--verbose cli option (logLevel 3) (@pavel)
--spa to a bundled middleware filespa-no-assets middleware that works like spa but ignores requests with extension--open arguments (@PirtleShell)head if body not found (@pmd1991)--spa cli option for single page apps, translates requests from /abc to /#/abc (@evanplaice)IP env var for default host (@dotnetCarpenter)ignorePattern from config file (@cyfersystems)--quiet now silences warning about injection failure--watch paths now disables adding mounted paths to watching--ignorePattern=RGXP exclude files from watching by regexp (@psi-4ward)--watch=PATH cli option to only watch given paths--mount=ROUTE:PATH cli option to specify alternative routes to paths (@pmentz)--browser=BROWSER cli option to specify browser to use (@sakiv)~/.live-server.json if exists (@mikker)--port=0 to select random port (@viqueen)--version / -v command line flags to display version--host cli option to mirror the API parameter--ignore=PATH cli option to not watch given server root relative paths (@richardgoater)--entry-file=PATH cli option to specify file to use when request is not found (@izeau)--wait=MSECS cli option to wait specified time before reloading (@leolower, @harrytruong)</body>logLevel parameter in library to control amount of console spam--quiet cli option to suppress console spam--open=PATH cli option to launch browser in specified path instead of root (@richardgoater)noBrowser: true option is deprecated in favor of open: false--no-browser command line flag to suppress browser launch--help command line flag to display usagelive-server --port=3000 (@Pomax)sendwatchr > 2.3.3Uses MIT licensed code from Connect and Roots.
(MIT License)
Copyright (c) 2012 Tapio Vierros
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:
The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.
FAQs
simple development http server with live reload capability
The npm package live-server receives a total of 101,563 weekly downloads. As such, live-server popularity was classified as popular.
We found that live-server demonstrated a not healthy version release cadence and project activity because the last version was released a year ago. It has 1 open source maintainer collaborating on the project.
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