webpack-dev-server

HTTPS

If you’re using the webpack-dev-server in development, you can serve your packs over HTTPS by setting the https option for webpack-dev-server to true in config/webpacker.yml, then start the dev server as usual with ./bin/webpack-dev-server.

Please note that the webpack-dev-server will use a self-signed certificate, so your web browser will display a warning/exception upon accessing the page. If you get https://localhost:3035/sockjs-node/info?t=1503127986584 net::ERR_INSECURE_RESPONSE in your console, simply open the link in your browser and accept the SSL exception. Now if you refresh your Rails view everything should work as expected.

Hot Module Replacement

Webpacker out-of-the-box supports HMR with webpack-dev-server and you can toggle it by setting options in config/webpacker.yml:

development:
  # ...
  dev_server:
    # ...
    hmr: true
    inline: true
    # ...

dev_server/hmr option inside webpacker.yml.

Check out this guide for more information:

• https://webpack.js.org/configuration/dev-server/#devserver-hot

To support HMR with React, see docs/react.md.

Nginx

If you use Nginx in development to proxy requests to your Rails server from another domain, like myapp.dev, the Webpacker middleware will be able to forward requests for “packs” to the webpack dev server.

If you’re using inline mode behind Nginx, you may also need to provide the hostname to webpack dev server so it can initiate the websocket connection for live reloading (Webpack docs).

To do so, set the public option in config/webpacker.yml:

development:
  # ...
  dev_server:
    # ...
    public: myapp.dev

You may also need to add the following location block to your local Nginx server configuration for your Rails app.

server {
    listen 80;
    server_name myapp.dev

    # Proxy webpack dev server websocket requests
    location /sockjs-node {
        proxy_redirect off;
        proxy_http_version 1.1;
        proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
        proxy_set_header Connection "upgrade";
        proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:3035; # change to match your webpack-dev-server host
    }

    # ...
}

Customizing Logging

By default, the dev server will display a colored progress notification while your code is being compiled. (Under the hood, we are using webpack-dev-server --progress --color). However, this might cause issues if you don’t use foreman and/or try to log webpack-dev-server’s output to a file. You can disable this stylized output by adding pretty: false to your dev_server config:

development:
  # ...
  dev_server:
    # ...
    pretty: false