Squid is a command line tool that monitor changes in the file system and compiles your files automatically each time you save. It supports coffeescript, stylus and Jade, but can easily be extended to other file types.

install the package globally to use the commands provided by the project (see desc below)

$ npm install -g squid

at the root of your project directory execute:

$ sq

this will

• start your server script
• live recompile your files and emit a growl notification**
• auto-restart your node server when a file loaded by your server script changes

You can also combine it to a tool like [liveReload] 1 to auto refresh your browser when client files are updated

**If you want to enable growl notification, install [growl] 2 and [growlNotify] 3

By default squid will relaunch index.js each time a change occurs in /lib if your main script isn't index.js you can specify a different script

$ sq my-script.js

to launch node in debug mode use -d option

$ sq -d

if you just want to build the project source files. use the sb command at the root of your project directory execute:

$ sb

You can also use squid to build your project inside your own build script

builder = require 'squid'

# build all files in src except your css folder
builder.buildAll except: ['css'], (errs) ->
  if errs
    console.error 'Error building the project'
    console.error "#{e.file}: #{e.toString()}" for e in errs
  else
    console.log 'build sucessful!'

squid can compile the following files. Want to add support for other file types? New builder can easily be implemented using the base Builder classe

squid manage your file dependencies and only compile the necessary files. here is how you define dependencies

You can define a squid.json object to specify folder mappings, and compilation options Here are the default options if you dont add a squid.json to your project

{
  "src": "src", /* source folder */
   "server": {
      "script": "index.js", /* server script to execute */
       env: {}	, /*additional ennvironment variables to load*/
   },
  "out": ".", /* build  folder */
  "jade": { /* jade default options */
    "amd": true /* wrap jade template inside a requirejs define block */
  },
  "stylus": { /* stylus default options */
    "url": {paths: ["public"]}, /* url options  */
    "paths": ["public/images"] /* image lookup path  */
  }
}

So if you have the following project

./
|- index.js
|- src
  |- lib
    |- server_file1.coffee
  |- public
    |- js
      |- client_file1.coffee
      |- client_file1.tpl.jade
    |- css
      |- file1.styl

after running sb or sq, squid will generate the following files

./
|- index.js
|- src
  |- ...
|- lib
  |- server_file1.js
|- public
  |- js
    |- client_file1.js
    |- client_file1.tpl.js
  |- css
    |- file1.css

You can define mappings rules to output your files into different folders

The following squid.json config will

• use mobile as src folder
• compile mobile/js/* to app/assets/javascripts/mobile
• compile mobile/stylesheets/* to app/assets/stylesheets/mobile

{
"src": "mobile",
"mappings": [
	{"from": "js", "to": "app/assets/javascripts/mobile"},
	{"from": "stylesheets", "to": "app/assets/stylesheets/mobile"}
]
}

You can specify a script to launch after each successful file build

The following squid.json config will trigger make bundle-app each time a file is successfully built in src/public

{
  "post_build": {"match": "src/public", "cmd": "make bundle-app" }
}

• Add more compiler options for compiler (PR are welcome)