v2026.4.129

🚧 Grunt Express Server updated with additional options

Simple grunt task for running an Express server that works great with LiveReload + Watch/Regarde.

It works with the latest Node and some additional options.

Changelog

readme

Getting Started

This plugin requires Grunt >=1.0.0

If you haven't used Grunt before, be sure to check out the Getting Started guide, as it explains how to create a Gruntfile as well as install and use Grunt plugins. Once you're familiar with that process, you may install this plugin with this command:

npm install grunt-p3x-express --save-dev

Once the plugin has been installed, it may be enabled inside your Gruntfile with this line of JavaScript:

grunt.loadNpmTasks('grunt-p3x-express');

The `express` task

Setup

In your project's Gruntfile, you can create one or multiple servers:

grunt.initConfig({
  express: {
    options: {
      // Override defaults here
    },
    dev: {
      options: {
        script: 'path/to/dev/server.js'
      }
    },
    prod: {
      options: {
        script: 'path/to/prod/server.js',
        node_env: 'production',
        env: {
            'NODE_MODE': 'cluster'
        }
      }
    },
    test: {
      options: {
        script: 'path/to/test/server.js'
      }
    }
  }
});

You can override the default options either in the root of the express config or within each individual server task.

Default `options`

  express: {
    options: {
      // Override the command used to start the server.
      // (do not use 'coffee' here, the server will not be able to restart
      //  see below at opts for coffee-script support)
      cmd: process.argv[0],

      // Will turn into: `node OPT1 OPT2 ... OPTN path/to/server.js ARG1 ARG2 ... ARGN`
      // (e.g. opts: ['node_modules/coffee-script/bin/coffee'] will correctly parse coffee-script)
      opts: [ ],
      args: [ ],

      // Setting to `false` will effectively just run `node path/to/server.js`
      background: true,

      // Called when the spawned server throws errors
      fallback: function() {},

      // Override node env's PORT
      port: 3000,

      // Override node env's NODE_ENV
      node_env: undefined,

      // Merge the process environment of this option
      env: {},

      // Enable Node's --harmony flag
      harmony: false,

      // Consider the server to be "running" after an explicit delay (in milliseconds)
      // (e.g. when server has no initial output)
      delay: 0,

      // Regular expression that matches server output to indicate it is "running"
      output: ".+",

      // Set --debug or --inspect (it checks the nodejs version) (true | false | integer from 1024 to 65535, has precedence over breakOnFirstLine)
      debug: false,

      // Set --debug-brk or --inspect-brk (it checks the nodejs version) (true | false | integer from 1024 to 65535)
      breakOnFirstLine: false,

      // Object with properties `out` and `err` both will take a path to a log file and
      // append the output of the server. Make sure the folders exist.
      logs: undefined

    }
  }

Usage

By default, unless delay or output has been customized, the server is considered "running" once any output is logged to the console, upon which control is passed back to grunt.

Typically, this is:

Express server listening on port 3000

If your server doesn't log anything, the express task will never finish and none of the following tasks, after it, will be executed. For example - if you have a development task like this one:

grunt.registerTask('rebuild', ['clean', 'browserify:scripts', 'stylus', 'copy:images']);
grunt.registerTask('dev', ['rebuild', 'express', 'watch']);

If you run the dev task and your server doesn't log anything, 'watch' will never be started.

This can easily be avoided, if you log something, when server is created like that:

var server = http.createServer( app ).listen( PORT, function() {
    console.log('Express server listening on port ' + PORT);
} );

If you log output before the server is running, either set delay or output to indicate when the server has officially started.

Starting the server

If you have a server defined named dev, you can start the server by running express:dev. The server only runs as long as grunt is running. Once grunt's tasks have completed, the web server stops.

Stopping the server

Similarly, if you start the dev server with express:dev, you can stop the server with express:dev:stop.

With grunt-contrib-watch

grunt.initConfig({
  watch: {
    express: {
      files:  [ '**/*.js' ],
      tasks:  [ 'express:dev' ],
      options: {
        spawn: false // for grunt-contrib-watch v0.5.0+, "nospawn: true" for lower versions. Without this option specified express won't be reloaded
      }
    }
  }
});

grunt.registerTask('server', [ 'express:dev', 'watch' ])

Important: Note that the spawn: false options only need be applied to the watch target regarding the express task. You may have other watch targets that use spawn: true, which is useful, for example, to reload CSS and not LESS changes.

watch: {
  options: {
    livereload: true
  },
  express: {
    files:  [ '**/*.js' ],
    tasks:  [ 'express:dev' ],
    options: {
      spawn: false,
      env: {
          'NODE_MODE': 'cluster'
      }
    }
  },
  less: {
    files: ["public/**/*.less"],
    tasks: ["less"],
    options: {
      livereload: false
    }
  },
  public: {
    files: ["public/**/*.css", "public/**/*.js"]
  }
}

Release History

Old version

https://github.com/ericclemmons/grunt-express-server

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Versioning Policy

Version Structure: We follow a Major.Minor.Patch versioning scheme:

Major: Corresponds to the current year.
Minor: Set as 4 for releases from January to June, and 10 for July to December.
Patch: Incremental, updated with each build.