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elm-watch

What elm-watch is

Remember the first time you ran elm make? It’s super fast, and has beautiful output. And it’s really stable! If the majority of your code is Elm, why complicate things with extra layers where things can go wrong? elm-watch tries to stay as close to that ideal as possible.

And do you remember trying out Elm with elm reactor? Did it feel easy to get started with, but you quickly grew out of it? elm-watch tries to be a more powerful alternative to elm reactor as well.

  • Maximum speed. elm-watch tries to do as little as possible besides running elm make for you. Doing less work is always faster!
  • Hot reloading. elm-watch tries to reimagine the level of quality of hot reloading. The goal is to never leave you wondering if it worked at all.
  • Beautiful colors. Elm’s error messages are lovely and colorful. elm-watch takes care to preserve them.
  • Browser UI. elm-watch always shows you the latest status in the browser. Switching to --debug mode – or even --optimize mode – is only a click away.
  • Cache free. Elm already has a cache – the elm-stuff/ folder – which is really stable and all you need. Famously one of the hardest things in programming, elm-watch has no extra caching to worry about.
  • Elm centric. elm-watch puts Elm at the heart. Let’s take advantage of Elm’s unique capabilities, like elm make --output /dev/null for super fast type checking of apps you’re not currently focusing on!
  • Elm ready. Includes an optional server that lets you get going with a Browser.application.
  • Reasonably hackable. Ever wanted to adjust Elm’s compiled JS? That’s just a String -> String function away for both development and production builds. Want to extend the server? It’s open for modification if you know some plain Node.js.
  • Well tested. elm-watch has 100 % test coverage, save for a few ignore coverage comments. elm-watch is serious about stability.
  • Super scalable. elm-watch can handle many Elm apps without getting slow. Only the apps you work on get compiled – in most recently used order. The rest are only type checked, which is faster.

👉 See also Comparison to other tools.

Dreams for the future

  • Interactive errors. Filter by target or Elm file. Collapse long code snippets (case expressions).
  • Elm reactor. . Imagine a modified Elm binary where elm reactor gave you an elm-watch like experience.