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Watch and Serve Configuration

Contents

Eleventy Dev Server Added in v2.0.0

Starting in Eleventy v2.0, we bundle a dedicated Development Server. The previous development server used Browsersync, which you can still use with Eleventy if you’d like.

Add Your Own Watch Targets

The addWatchTarget config method allows you to manually add a file or directory for Eleventy to watch. When the file or the files in this directory change Eleventy will trigger a build. This is useful if Eleventy is not directly aware of any external file dependencies.

Filename .eleventy.js
module.exports = function (eleventyConfig) {
	eleventyConfig.addWatchTarget("./src/scss/");
};

Advanced usage note: This works with chokidar under the hood and chokidar uses picomatch for globbing:

  • Both **/*.(png|jpeg) and **/*.{png,jpeg} are valid globs to matches any png or jpeg file in your project.

Ignore Watching Files

.gitignore

Eleventy will ignore changes to files or folders listed in your .gitignore file by default, unless setUseGitIgnore is turned off.

Configuration API Added in v2.0.0

Previously, the configuration API ignores for template processing were also used as ignores for watching (e.g. eleventyConfig.ignores.add("README.md")).

New in v2.0.0, watch target ignores now have their own dedicated API:

module.exports = function (eleventyConfig) {
	// Do not rebuild when README.md changes (You can use a glob here too)
	eleventyConfig.watchIgnores.add("README.md");

	// Or delete entries too
	eleventyConfig.watchIgnores.delete("README.md");
};

The watchIgnores Set starts with a default **/node_modules/** entry.

Watch JavaScript Dependencies

When in --watch mode, Eleventy will spider the dependencies of your JavaScript Templates (.11ty.js), JavaScript Data Files (.11tydata.js or _data/**/*.js), or Configuration File (usually .eleventy.js) to watch those files too. Files in node_modules directories are ignored. This feature is enabled by default.

Filename .eleventy.js
module.exports = function (eleventyConfig) {
	// Enabled by default
	eleventyConfig.setWatchJavaScriptDependencies(false);
};

Add delay before re-running

A hardcoded amount of time Eleventy will wait before triggering a new build when files have changes during --watch or --serve modes. You probably won’t need this, but is useful in some edge cases with other task runners (Gulp, Grunt, etc).

module.exports = function (eleventyConfig) {
	// default is 0
	eleventyConfig.setWatchThrottleWaitTime(100); // in milliseconds
};

Advanced chokidar Configuration

Advanced chokidar options can be defined using the setChokidarConfig configuration API method:

Filename .eleventy.js
module.exports = function(eleventyConfig) {
	eleventyConfig.setChokidarConfig({
		usePolling: true,
		interval: 500,
	});
}
WARNING:
If you’re using Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) and your project exists outside of your home directory (~), you will likely want to use the usePolling feature to ensure watching works correctly. This is a WSL limitation.

Other pages in Configuration: