[Feature]: Watch for webpack config changes in watch mode

I'm submitting a feature request

Webpack version:
2.x

Please tell us about your environment:
OSX 10.x

Current behavior:
I'm not sure if this was discussed before, but it's one of the pain point for me in webpack workflow.

When config / config's dep is updated — hot reloadable server (or watch mode) must be restarted manually. Usually this hot reloadable server is not stand-alone process, but part of the bigger task or even lives inside docker container. And in case of config related change — the only way to pick this up is to restart everything.

Expected/desired behavior:

It'd be cool if webpack could track such changes and rebuild everything from scratch w/o killing current process.

What is the motivation / use case for changing the behavior?

It'll make easier:

work on webpack config setup
work w/ loader's configs, eg postcss plugin's options (js vars etc)

Moved from webpack/webpack#3153

@ev1stensberg

@ev1stensberg, @pksjce what you guys think, should this be part of our roadmap to v1 ?

Minimum - document how to achieve it outside of the cli. I guess it depends on the overall goals and priority. I expect v1 would be more or less what it is right now and you can build more features in v1.1 and so on.

I'd expect the same. So far, did not have time to look deeper into the already available options, but if this is in there, for sure will be part of v1. Otherwise, I'd agree with you by adding this to a v1.1 milestone

Fixed #24

@ev1stensberg

@ev1stensberg, does this apply to hot-module-reloading / webpack-dev-server? I'm looking for a solution to reset Webpack so it'll pick up the new configuration, and have HMR communicate this change appropriately (likely, a "you must manually refresh to pick up latest changes" type message).

How do we enable this in that scenario; is it as simple as watching the files that modify Webpack configuration? How does one use that without causing all watched files to incite a Webpack reset?

The resave flag applies to HMR, indeed. Let me get back to you about your issues later this week :)

@ev1stensberg

@ev1stensberg How does #24 solve this issue? It seems like it's not related.

webpack-cli -w -s will refresh everytime you save. I can see that this is actually for the webpack config itself. Insecure if this can be done on the CLI side of things.

IMHO we should either reopen this issue or webpack/webpack#3153

@bebraw

Pinging @bebraw for advice

bump

https://thisdavej.com/how-to-watch-for-files-changes-in-node-js/ and update the webpack options object, do this at a highest level in the architecture as possible. Should be doable

No, it is wrong solution, we need watch any require/import and nested require/import

No. We need to watch for when the webpack configuration changes, require/import would be the same

@evenstensberg

@evenstensberg if something was changed in require or import we should invalidate configuration again, like we do inside webpack for dependencies

Here solution how we can implement this #2797 (comment)

We need:

move buildDependecies from options.cache.buildDependencies to the top option (it will be useful for any configurations, not only for webpack itself)
implement watchRun hook and get files from compilation.modifiedFiles, if we have confiugration file there restart our CLI

I think it would be easier to in the first iteration to watch for actual configuration file changes, not the compilation itself

I think it would be easier to in the first iteration to watch for actual configuration file changes, not the compilation itself

Easier?

Yes, implementation wise. We can add cache based invalidation later.

We already can implement this if a developer enables cache, we just need

implement watchRun hook and get files from compilation.modifiedFiles, if we have confiugration file there restart our CLI

This issue should be transfered to /webpack.

@evenstensberg

@evenstensberg It is common problem for webpack-cli and webpack and should be implemented on both sides, so let's keep it here

We need to move buildDependecies from cache to top level option then adding configuration to watch and it will work

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[Feature]: Watch for webpack config changes in watch mode #15

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[Feature]: Watch for webpack config changes in watch mode #15

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DanielaValero commented on Jan 4, 2017

bebraw commented on Jan 4, 2017

DanielaValero commented on Jan 4, 2017

evenstensberg commented on Jan 28, 2017

nmschulte commented on Apr 6, 2017

evenstensberg commented on Apr 7, 2017

yacinehmito commented on May 17, 2017

evenstensberg commented on May 17, 2017

yacinehmito commented on May 17, 2017

evenstensberg commented on May 17, 2017

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alexander-akait commented on Jan 15, 2021

evenstensberg commented on Apr 24, 2021

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evenstensberg commented on Jun 24, 2021

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alexander-akait commented on May 3, 2023

evenstensberg commented on Nov 24, 2023

binury commented on Nov 24, 2023

evenstensberg commented on Nov 24, 2023

alexander-akait commented on Dec 26, 2023

evenstensberg commented on Jun 26, 2025

alexander-akait commented on Jun 26, 2025

alexander-akait commented on Jun 26, 2025

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