nodemon ignore directory

Question

In a Universal Javascript app, I would like nodemon to ignore client directory changes.

I have tried the following:

"devStart": "nodemon server/server.js --ignore 'client/*' --exec babel-node",
"devStart": "nodemon server/server.js --ignore 'client/' --exec babel-node",
"devStart": "nodemon server/server.js --ignore client/ --exec babel-node",
"devStart": "nodemon --ignore 'client/*' server/server.js --exec babel-node",
"devStart": "nodemon --ignore 'client/' server/server.js --exec babel-node",
"devStart": "nodemon --ignore client/ server/server.js --exec babel-node",

None of these work.

File structure:

+-server
+-client
+-package.json <------- where nodemon script is

However this is not working. Pretty sure it is a pattern issue.

Any ideas?

Petronella

I'd suggest store your nodemon configurations in nodemon.json file. would make it cleaner. – Sharpfreeze

@Aᴍɪʀ Thanks for the tip. Any tips for the actual question? – Petronella

pretty sure its just the path to client thats off - should be ./client/*, or client/* – Burnham

can you try without the ' marks around and also use . instead of ..: './client/*' and also without *? – Sharpfreeze

@Aᴍɪʀ edited package.json is actually in the same directory as server and client – Petronella

just to be clear, you are running it through npm run devStart, right? does it work if you write the exact same thing directly in command line? – Sharpfreeze

@Aᴍɪʀ yes sir I am – Petronella

The command nodemon server/server.js --ignore client/ --exec babel-node should work. I just tested it out. Make sure that you're ending nodemon after saving your package.json file. – Ellis

Answer 1

You need to replace .. with ., or just reference client/ directly, also you will need to remove the asterisk:

"devStart": "nodemon --ignore ./client/ --exec babel-node src/server.js"

Or

"devStart": "nodemon --ignore client/ --exec babel-node src/server.js"

According to nodemon docs this is how to ignore a directory via command line:

nodemon --ignore lib/ --ignore tests/

Also note that nodemon will only restart the node process, if you change the npm script you will need to kill the process and re-run npm run devStart

Burnham

Edited my package.json is actually in the same directory as client and src – Petronella

have updated the answer to remove the asterisk - nodemon docs say to follow this pattern: nodemon --ignore lib/ --ignore tests/ – Burnham

I tried that also. Could it be the order of things? Should the directory nodemon is expected to run come after the ignore? – Petronella

Ok got it. I was expecting the server reload to actually reload the devStart script. Turns out I had to kill the process and run npm run devStart again. If you can update your answer to reflect this I will accept it. @Burnham – Petronella

"you will need to remove the asterisk" worked for me! Thank you. – Flaw

I had to remove the quotes around client/ – Parlando

REMOVE THE QUOTES works for me: nodemon --ignore client src/server.js – Lampoon

You can ignore a set of directories by using asterisk (ie: --ignore 'foo-*/') – Pazpaza

Answer 2

In the very likely circumstance that you're using nodemon in a configuration file, you can create a separate configuration entry for those files to be ignored. Bonus, a cleaner looking nodemon call, especially if files to ignore grows large.

For example, this package.json instructs nodemon to ignore directory test:

{
  "scripts": {
    "test": "jest",
    "start": "nodemon server.js"
  },
  "nodemonConfig": {
      "ignore": ["test/*"]
  }
}

Find the complete instructions for nodemon configuration file settings here.

As in the other answer, be sure to restart nodemon for the configuration changes to take effect.

Nosepiece

Answer 3

Create nodemon.json in your project root that looks something like this:

{
  "ignore": ["db.json"]
}

This is an alternative to using package.json as seen in Andrew Philips answer

See docs

Foothold

Answer 4

just so you all know, i was using this pattern to exclude directories :

node_modules/**

but it led to using a LOT of watchers: nearly 500000 on one of my projects and now i use

node_modules/

which uses only 134 watchers.

Always monitor your work

Shannon

Any guidance on how you monitor these watchers? – Thracophrygian

For those who stumble across this, you can add "verbose": true, to your nodemon.json file and it'll show you the count of files being watched. – Thracophrygian

@Thracophrygian i used this to count inotify handles : github.com/fatso83/dotfiles/blob/master/utils/scripts/… – Shannon

Answer 5

Also you can use something like this to run nodemon only in a specific folder. This way you don't have to add multiple --ignore parameters.

{
  "scripts": {
    "devStart": "cd ./server/ && nodemon ./server.js"
  }
}

Hare