Skip to content

Latest commit

 

History

History
39 lines (25 loc) · 1.02 KB

0024-move-to-jsbundling-and-esbuild.md

File metadata and controls

39 lines (25 loc) · 1.02 KB
Raw

24. Move to JSBundling and ESBuild

Date: 2024-05-02

Status

Accepted

Context

Up until now we have relied on very simple JavaScripts provided by:

  • GOV.UK Fronend
  • DfE Frontend
  • Accessible Autocomplete

As we move forward we will need to write more and more complex JavaScript and relying on the Rails Sprockets[1] asset pipeline for this will soon get difficult.

The modern alternative is Rails JSBundling[2] along with a JS Bundler.

We've chosen to go with ESBuild as it has fast build times and almost no configuration for our use case.

[1] https://github.com/rails/sprockets [2] https://github.com/rails/jsbundling-rails [3] https://github.com/evanw/esbuild

Decision

We'll use Rails JSBundling along with ESBuild to bundle our modern JavaScript for the browser.

Consequences

  • developers will have to manage running the build process and the development server, although this is made simple with the scripts
  • our browser support is now dictated by our ESBuild config, but we have no-JS fall-backs in place