Live Server

This is a little development server with live reload capability. Use it for hacking your HTML/JavaScript/CSS files, but not for deploying the final site.

There are two reasons for using this:

1. AJAX requests don't work with the file:// protocol due to security restrictions, i.e. you need a server if your site fetches content through JavaScript.
2. Having the page reload automatically after changes to files can accelerate development.

You don't need to install any browser plugins or manually add code snippets to your pages for the reload functionality to work, see "How it works" section below for more information. If you don't want/need the live reload, you should probably use something even simpler, like the following Python-based one-liner:

python -m SimpleHTTPServer

Installation

You need node.js and npm. You should probably install this globally.

Npm way

npm install -g live-server

Manual way

git clone https://github.com/tapio/live-server
cd live-server
npm install # Local dependencies if you want to hack
npm install -g # Install globally

Usage from command line

Issue the command live-server in your project's directory. Alternatively you can add the path to serve as a command line parameter.

This will automatically launch the default browser. When you make a change to any file, the browser will reload the page - unless it was a CSS file in which case the changes are applied without a reload.

Command line parameters:

• --port=NUMBER - select port to use, default: PORT env var or 8080
• --host=ADDRESS - select host address to bind to, default: IP env var or 0.0.0.0 ("any address")
• --no-browser - suppress automatic web browser launching
• --browser=BROWSER - specify browser to use instead of system default
• --quiet | -q - suppress logging
• --verbose | -V - more logging (logs all requests, shows all listening IPv4 interfaces, etc.)
• --open=PATH - launch browser to PATH instead of server root
• --watch=PATH - comma-separated string of paths to exclusively watch for changes (default: watch everything)
• --ignore=PATH - comma-separated string of paths to ignore (anymatch-compatible definition)
• --ignorePattern=RGXP - Regular expression of files to ignore (ie .*\.jade) (DEPRECATED in favor of --ignore)
• --no-css-inject - reload page on CSS change, rather than injecting changed CSS
• --middleware=PATH - path to .js file exporting a middleware function to add; can be a name without path nor extension to reference bundled middlewares in middleware folder
• --entry-file=PATH - serve this file (server root relative) in place of missing files (useful for single page apps)
• --mount=ROUTE:PATH - serve the paths contents under the defined route (multiple definitions possible)
• --spa - translate requests from /abc to /#/abc (handy for Single Page Apps)
• --wait=MILLISECONDS - (default 100ms) wait for all changes, before reloading
• --htpasswd=PATH - Enables http-auth expecting htpasswd file located at PATH
• --cors - Enables CORS for any origin (reflects request origin, requests with credentials are supported)
• --https=PATH - PATH to a HTTPS configuration module
• --https-module=MODULE_NAME - Custom HTTPS module (e.g. spdy)
• --proxy=ROUTE:URL - proxy all requests for ROUTE to URL
• --help | -h - display terse usage hint and exit
• --version | -v - display version and exit

Default options:

If a file ~/.live-server.json exists it will be loaded and used as default options for live-server on the command line. See "Usage from node" for option names.

Usage from node

var liveServer = require("live-server");

var params = {
	port: 8181, // Set the server port. Defaults to 8080.
	host: "0.0.0.0", // Set the address to bind to. Defaults to 0.0.0.0 or process.env.IP.
	root: "/public", // Set root directory that's being served. Defaults to cwd.
	open: false, // When false, it won't load your browser by default.
	ignore: 'scss,my/templates', // comma-separated string for paths to ignore
	file: "index.html", // When set, serve this file (server root relative) for every 404 (useful for single-page applications)
	wait: 1000, // Waits for all changes, before reloading. Defaults to 0 sec.
	mount: [['/components', './node_modules']], // Mount a directory to a route.
	logLevel: 2, // 0 = errors only, 1 = some, 2 = lots
	middleware: [function(req, res, next) { next(); }] // Takes an array of Connect-compatible middleware that are injected into the server middleware stack
};
liveServer.start(params);

HTTPS

In order to enable HTTPS support, you'll need to create a configuration module. The module must export an object that will be used to configure a HTTPS server. The keys are the same as the keys in options for tls.createServer.

For example:

var fs = require("fs");

module.exports = {
	cert: fs.readFileSync(__dirname + "/server.cert"),
	key: fs.readFileSync(__dirname + "/server.key"),
	passphrase: "12345"
};

If using the node API, you can also directly pass a configuration object instead of a path to the module.

HTTP/2

To get HTTP/2 support one can provide a custom HTTPS module via --https-module CLI parameter (httpsModule option for Node.js script). Be sure to install the module first. HTTP/2 unencrypted mode is not supported by browsers, thus not supported by live-server. See this question and can I use page on HTTP/2 for more details.

For example from CLI(bash):

live-server \
	--https=path/to/https.conf.js \
	--https-module=spdy \
	my-app-folder/

Troubleshooting

• No reload on changes
  • Open your browser's console: there should be a message at the top stating that live reload is enabled. Note that you will need a browser that supports WebSockets. If there are errors, deal with them. If it's still not working, file an issue.
• Error: watch