Auto reloading a Sails.js app on code changes? - node.js

Question

Currently is seems that for any code change in a sails.js app you have to manually stop the sails server and run sails lift again before you can see the changes.
I was wondering if there is any way when running in development mode to automatically restart the sails server when it detects a code change?

Answer 1

You have to use a watcher like forever, nodemon, or something else...
Example
Install forever by running:
sudo npm install -g forever
Run it:
forever -w start app.js
To avoid infinite restart because Sails writes into .tmp folder, you can create a .foreverignore file into your project directory and put this content inside:
**/.tmp/**
**/views/**
**/assets/**
See the issue on GitHub:
Forever restarting because of /.tmp.

Answer 2

You can use sails-hook-autoreload
Just lift your app as normal, and when you add / change / remove a model or controller file, all controllers and models will be reloaded without having to lower / relift the app.

Answer 3

For example with nodemon to watch api and config directories
.nodemonignore contents
views/*
.tmp/*
.git/*
Run the command after creating .nodemonignore
$> nodemon -w api -w config
Example for supervisor to ignore 3 directories
$> supervisor -i .tmp,.git,views app.js

Answer 4

If you're using Sails 0.11, you can install this hook to automatically reload when you change models or controllers (views do not require reloading):
npm install sails-hook-autoreload
https://www.npmjs.com/package/sails-hook-autoreload

Answer 5

install nodemon globally or locally.
npm install nodemon --save
npm install nodemon -g
install sails locally in you project as follows
npm install sails --save
then change package.json
from
"scripts": {
"debug": "node debug app.js",
"start": "node app.js"
},
to
"scripts": {
"debug": "node debug app.js",
"start": "node app.js",
"dev": "export NODE_ENV=development && nodemon --ignore 'tmp/*' app.js && exit 0"
},
then
npm run dev

Answer 6

I had the same problem and I have solved it using grunt-watch and grunt-forever with sails#beta tasks. The result is 4 grunt commands:
UPDATE: tasks are available in the current sails version (it's no longer beta :>)
start Starts the server
stop Stops the server
restart Restarts the server
startWatch Starts the server and waits for changes to restart it (using grunt-watch). This is probably your solution, but the other commands are also useful.
Here's the code - I'm using sails#beta, which includes a tasks directory, I don't know if this is included in previous versions:
First of all you have to install forever in your sails directory:
npm install grunt-forever --save-dev
tasks/config/forever.js Configure forever task.
module.exports = function(grunt) {
grunt.config.set('forever', {
server: {
options: {
index: 'app.js',
logDir: 'logs'
}
}
});
grunt.loadNpmTasks('grunt-forever');
};
tasks/config/watch.js (edit) Edit watch task in order to add a new rule
// api and assets default rules
,
server: {
// Server files to watch:
files: [
'api/**/*',
'config/**/*'
],
// Restart server
tasks: ['forever:server:restart']
}
tasks/register/watchForever.js Register your custom tasks (this file can be renamed to whatever you want)
module.exports = function(grunt) {
// Starts server
grunt.registerTask('start', [
'compileAssets',
'linkAssetsBuild',
'clean:build',
'copy:build',
'forever:server:start'
]);
// Restarts the server (if necessary) and waits for changes
grunt.registerTask('startWatch', [
'restart',
'watch:server'
]);
// Restarts server
grunt.registerTask('restart', [
'forever:server:restart'
]);
// Stops server
grunt.registerTask('stop', [
'forever:server:stop'
]);
};
With this you should be able to use
grunt startWatch
and make your server wait for changes to be restarted :>
Hope this helped!

Answer 7

Better you use
npm install -g nodemon
i am using this, and it will helps to improve my developing speed. no need to edit any files for this one!.
after installation
nodemon app.js

Answer 8

For anyone coming to this question now, it seems that this is no longer necessary - an application launched with sails lift will have a grunt watch task running, and code changes will be visible without a restart.
I didn't realise this was happening at first because there's nothing to indicate what's happening in the console, but it does seem to work without a restart (I'm using Sails 0.11)