Build Tool Boilerplate

A simple boilerplate for using NPM tasks to build and compile JavaScript, CSS, and image files.

Install

• Install Node.js.
• Download the NPM Build Tool Boilerplate.

Quick Start

Each task has just one or two dependencies (except for image optimization), so I recommend deleting the ones you don't need before running npm install. Learn more in the documentation below.

1. In bash/terminal/command line, cd into your project directory.
2. Run npm install.
3. Run npm run build.

Documentation

This is a boilerplate that you can use as a starting point for your projects.

Running Tasks · JavaScript · Sass => CSS · SVG Optimization · Image Optimization · Copy Files · Clean · Complete Build

Running Tasks

The boilerplate uses the npm run command to run tasks.

# Cross-Platform
npm run js    # compile and minify
npm run css   # compile and minify Sass into CSS
npm run svg   # optimize SVGs with SVGO
npm run img   # optimize image files

# macOS/Linux
npm run copy  # copy files from the src/copy directory as-is into /dist
npm run clean # delete the /dist directory
npm run build # run all tasks

# Windows
npm run copywin  # copy files from the src/copy directory as-is into /dist
npm run cleanwin # delete the /dist directory
npm run buildwin # run all tasks

JavaScript

The boilerplate uses rollup.js with the terser plugin to parse, compile, and minify JavaScript files.

{
    "devDependencies": {
        "rollup": "^2.6.1",
        "rollup-plugin-terser": "^5.3.0"
    }
}

In the rollup.config.js file, there's a configs object that you can use to control what rollup.js does.

// Configs
var configs = {
    name: 'MyProject',                // Global namespace to use for IIFEs [optional]
    files: ['main.js', 'detects.js'], // The files to process
    formats: ['iife', 'es'],          // The formats to output - will be added as a suffix to the filename (ex. main.es.js)
    default: 'iife',                  // Files with this format will not have a format suffix [optional]
    pathIn: 'src/js',                 // The source directory for your JS files
    pathOut: 'dist/js',               // The directory to compile JS files into
    minify: true                      // If true, a minified version will also be created with the .min suffix
};

A banner is automatically generated from your package.json data.

It includes the project name and version, a copyright notice with the current year and the package author name, the license type, and a link to the project repository.

// Banner
var banner = `/*! ${configs.name ? configs.name : pkg.name} v${pkg.version} | (c) ${new Date().getFullYear()} ${pkg.author.name} | ${pkg.license} License | ${pkg.repository.url} */`;

To concatentate multiple files into one, use the ES modules import feature.

// myplugin.js
// This will compile into /dist/js/myplugin.js, and will include helpers.js, app.js, and event-listeners.js

import * as Helpers from './helpers.js';
import app from './app.js';
import './event-listeners.js';

JavaScript files should be in the src/js directory. Use this task to run the build.

npm run js

Sass => CSS

The boilerplate uses the Node implementation of dart-sass to parse .scss files into CSS.

{
    "devDependencies": {
        "sass": "^1.26.5"
    }
}

In the sass.js file, there's a configs object that you can use to control what dart-sass does.

// Configs
var configs = {
    name: 'MyProject',    // The name to use in the file banner
    files: ['main.scss'], // The files to process
    pathIn: 'src/scss',   // The source directory for your Sass files
    pathOut: 'dist/css',  // The directory to compile CSS files into
    sourceMap: false,     // If true, will generate a sourcemap
    indentType: 'tab',    // The type of indenting to use ['tab'|'spaces']
    indentWidth: 1,       // How many tabs or spaces to indent
    minify: true          // If true, a minified version will also be created with the .min suffix
};

A banner is automatically generated from your package.json data.

It includes the project name and version, a copyright notice with the current year and the package author name, the license type, and a link to the project repository.

// Banner
var banner = `/*! ${configs.name ? configs.name : pkg.name} v${pkg.version} | (c) ${new Date().getFullYear()} ${pkg.author.name} | ${pkg.license} License | ${pkg.repository.url} */`;

Sass files should be in the src/scss directory. Use this task to run the build.

npm run css

SVG Optimization

The boilerplate uses svgo to remove the cruft that gets added to SVG files by many editors.

{
    "devDependencies": {
        "svgo": "^1.3.2",
    }
}

For accessibility reasons, the boilerplate disables the settings that remove the title element and viewBox attribute.

You can make additional comand line configurations under the svg tasks in the scripts property of the package.json file.

svgo -f src/svg dist/svg --disable=removeViewBox,removeTitle

SVGs should be in the src/svg directory. Use this task to run the build.

npm run svg

Image Optimization

The boilerplate uses imagemin, with the MozJPEG, pngcrush, pngquant, and zopfli plugins.

(Yea, that's kind of lot, isn't it?)

{
    "devDependencies": {
        "imagemin-cli": "^5.1.0",
        "imagemin-mozjpeg": "^8.0.0",
        "imagemin-pngcrush": "^6.0.0",
        "imagemin-pngquant": "^8.0.0",
        "imagemin-zopfli": "^6.0.0",
    }
}

Image files should be in the src/img directory. Use this task to run the build.

npm run img

Copy Files

If you have files you want copied as-is, place them in the src/copy directory.

There's no dependency for this task, but it does use unix/linux conventions that might not work on pre-bash Windows.

Use this task to run the build.

# macOS/Linux
npm run copy

# Windows
npm run copywin

Clean

You can delete the /dist directory before running a build to clean up any junk that might have ended up there.

There's no dependency for this task, but it does use unix/linux conventions that might not work on pre-bash Windows.

# macOS/Linux
npm run clean

# Windows
npm run cleanwin

Complete Build

You can run all of your build tasks in a single command.

Be sure to delete any tasks you're not using from the build tasks under scripts in your package.json file first. The && joins tasks, just like in JavaScript.

# Example (not cross-platform)
npm run clean && npm run js && npm run css && npm run svg && npm run img && npm run copy

Use this task to run the build.

# macOS/Linux
npm run build

# Windows
npm run buildwin

Why does this exist?

For years, I've been an avid Gulp user. Gulp is great. But it's also a lot.

I wanted a simpler, more resilient, leaner set of build tools.

I'm tired of having to repair my build anytime I don't use it for a few months. I'm tired of installing 270mb of node_modules dependencies to build a simple website or web app.

With NPM, you can build a simplish build tool that does just what you want (and nothing more) with a fraction of the footprint.

❤️ Major kudos to Keith Cirkel for teaching me about this years ago, before I was ready to hear it. Huge thanks to Charles Roper for creating Windows versions of some of the OS-specific terminal prompts.