workbox-core

What is workbox-core?

The workbox-core package is a part of the Workbox suite of libraries and tools for service workers. It provides essential utilities and base classes that are used by other Workbox modules. It helps in managing service worker lifecycle, caching strategies, and request routing.

What are workbox-core's main functionalities?

Service Worker Lifecycle Management

This feature helps in managing the lifecycle of service workers. The `clientsClaim` method ensures that the service worker starts controlling all open clients as soon as it activates.

import { clientsClaim } from 'workbox-core';

self.addEventListener('activate', (event) => {
  event.waitUntil(clientsClaim());
});

Precaching

Although this feature is part of workbox-precaching, it relies on workbox-core for some of its functionality. It allows you to precache assets during the service worker installation phase.

import { precacheAndRoute } from 'workbox-precaching';

precacheAndRoute(self.__WB_MANIFEST);

Routing

This feature allows you to define custom routing rules for network requests. In this example, it uses the Stale-While-Revalidate strategy for caching images.

import { registerRoute } from 'workbox-routing';
import { StaleWhileRevalidate } from 'workbox-strategies';

registerRoute(
  ({request}) => request.destination === 'image',
  new StaleWhileRevalidate({
    cacheName: 'images',
  })
);

Other packages similar to workbox-core

sw-toolbox

sw-toolbox is a collection of tools for service workers, similar to Workbox. It provides caching strategies and request routing. However, Workbox is more modular and offers a more comprehensive set of features.

sw-precache

sw-precache is a library for generating service worker code that precaches resources. It is similar to Workbox's precaching capabilities but is less flexible and lacks the modularity of Workbox.

serviceworker-webpack-plugin

This plugin integrates service workers into the Webpack build process. While it offers some similar functionalities like precaching, it is not as feature-rich or modular as Workbox.

README

This module's documentation can be found at https://developers.google.com/web/tools/workbox/modules/workbox-core