Reuse a Grunt environment across multiple projects
-
Install Grunt Source
npm install -g grunt-source
-
In your project's root, create a
Gruntsource.json
pointing to your Grunt source environment:{ "source": "../grunt-source-foo" }
-
A Grunt source environment is a directory with a normal
Gruntfile.js
with two slight modifications:- All calls to
grunt.loadNpmTasks()
removed. - A call to
grunt.source.loadAllTasks();
is added to the top of theGruntfile.js
(See the example).
- All calls to
-
Then simply run
grunt-source
grunt-source
You can use
grunt-source
just as you would normally usegrunt
. Givegrunt-source --help
a try.
For a simple example, please see:
The Problem - Grunt environments can quickly become quite complicated and whenever we need to reuse a Grunt environment, it requires us to copy the current project and remove the source leaving just the Grunt related files.
A static solution - The Grunt team has made grunt-init
which gives you a static copy of a predefined template. Although grunt-init
does provide a way to
template in new values for each copy, this is can still be improved.
A dynamic solution - Enter Grunt Source, instead of making numerous static copies of a given
Grunt environment, you can actually use one Grunt environment for multiple projects. Also, having a
directory separation between the Grunt environment and the actual source will help to reduce the
complexity of your project. We can still have grunt-init
like behaviour with grunt-source
(e.g. initial placeholder source files) by using the in-built init task.
When using Grunt Source, projects will now contain only a Gruntsource.json
, thereby abstracting
the magic of Grunt outside of the project. This will help those who don't need to know the
complexities of the build, yet still want to modify the source.
So with Grunt Source, we'll have one Grunt Source project which looks like:
├── Gruntfile.coffee
├── README.md
├── init
│ └── ...
├── node_modules
│ └── ...
└── package.json
And then multiple projects using this Grunt Source might look like:
├── Gruntsource.json
├── css
│ └── app.css
├── index.html
├── js
│ └── app.js
└── src
├── scripts
├── styles
└── views
This directory structure is for grunt-source-web to build optimised static websites, ready to be hosted.
In your Gruntsource.json file, the following properties are allowed:
source
- required - the directory where the source Grunt environment resides.repo
- the Git repository which will be used to initialise and update thesource
.url[@ref]
whereref
is a Git Reference (tag or commit hash)
config
- an object which will get merged when you callgrunt.initConfig()
, allowing you to override the source Gruntfile configuration.<prop>
- any valid JSON value, in yourGruntfile.js
will be accessible asgrunt.source.<prop>
.
In your Gruntfile wrapper function, a source
object is added to the grunt
object.
This function is very important, first it loads all of the tasks (npm tasks and
local tasks) in the "source" directory (or the Grunt project directory), then it
changes the working directory back to the current directory and loads all local tasks
there. So before the function is called, the current working directory is the source
directory. Therefore, in the majority of cases, we'll want to call this function
at the top of our Grunt Source Gruntfile.js
s.
Essentially, the above description is the following:
//cwd is initially set the source directory!
//automatically `grunt.loadNpmTasks` all tasks inside the source directory's package.json's 'devDependencies' field
loadGruntTasks(grunt);
//load all user defined tasks inside the source directory
grunt.loadTasks("./tasks");
//set cwd to project directory (the directory you execute 'grunt-source' from)
process.chdir(PROJECT_DIR);
//load all user defined tasks inside the project directory
grunt.loadTasks("./tasks");
loadGruntTasks
is provided by load-grunt-tasks
The absolute path to the source directory
All properties defined in your configuration object will also be set on the grunt.source
object
For example, the Gruntfile.coffee
in grunt-source-web, places
the grunt.source
object in the Jade data option object, so in our index.jade
file, we can do things like:
{
"source": "~/.grunt-sources/web",
"repo": "https://github.com/jpillora/grunt-source-web.git",
"title": "Hello Grunt Source"
}
!!!5
html
head
title #{source.title}
body
h5 #{source.title}
Before grunt
is started, the following tasks are registered (grunt.registerTask
).
Therefore, all Grunt Sources will have the following tasks avaiable (just init
for now).
Although we no longer need to copy and paste our Grunt environments across various projects. It can still be useful to generate an initial set of source files.
grunt-source init
will copy all files from the source directory's init folder into the current
working directory, however, it will only copy those files that are missing.
Also, upon clone of the repo
property, this task will automatically be run.
Instead of creating a Gruntsource.json
, you can add a gruntSource
field to your package.json
file:
{
"name": "my-module",
"version": "0.1.3",
"gruntSource": {
"source": "~/.grunt-sources/node",
"repo": "https://github.com/jpillora/grunt-source-node.git"
}
}
The grunt-source
runs in a similar way to grunt-cli
, so commands like grunt-source task2:target4 task3:target1
will work as you expect.
See grunt-source-web for
an example Grunt Source, and then see notifyjs-com
for an example project using grunt-source-web
. Or grunt-source-node.
Copyright © 2013 Jaime Pillora <dev@jpillora.com>
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the 'Software'), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:
The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED 'AS IS', WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.