web-server.dev

👨🏽‍💻 work in progress !

A development web server with 2 core features:

• serve static files from local folder (example: front end) – or multiple local folders
• reverse proxy calls to local or remote URLs (example: REST API)

Running as a console app, from the command line, with minimal installation and configuration

Motivation:

• some typical scenarios or browser features require HTML / JS / CSS to be hosted on a local HTTP server, even during development (e.g. service workers, clipboard, ...) – and not just opening the files directly from the file system
• when calling local or remote APIs, using a distinct hosting server for HTML / JS / CSS can cause issues (e.g. with CORS, ...)

Having the same frontal server for everything simplifies the developpement setup

Inspiration:

• Simple web server, but with a reverse proxy
• Ngnix, but without the whole ceremony

Installation

1. Go to the Releases page
2. Download the latest zip file corresponding to your operating system
3. Unzip the downloaded file to your computer

Configuration / Usage

1. Configuration is done in settings.json ; edited according to use case (see examples below)
2. Run web-server.exe (Windows) or web-server (Linux)
3. Open http://localhost:8080/ in browser

CTRL + C to stop

Example use case 1

Create a local server to host static files during development (HTML, JS / ECMAScript, CSS, images...)

• typically required for browser features that are disabled when opening the files directly from file system (e.g. service workers, clipboard, ...)

// settings.json
{
  "routes": {
    "/": "~/my-new-website/"
  }
}

Remember to escape the backward slashes and quotes in path.

Example use case 2

Serve front-end files from local folder and proxy API calls to a back-end system

• removes the need to setup CORS on the back-end, since the browser sees everything as a single web server

// settings.json
{
  "routes": {
    "/": "~/my-new-website/",
    "/api" : "http://swapi.dev/"
  }
}

More complex setups

An arbitrary number of local folders to serve and remote APIs to proxy can be configured:

• Serve front-end files from multiple local folders (for instance a home page and a documentation site)
• Group multiple APIs behind a single access point (for instance public API and private API)
• Front-office app and API and back-office app and API

Run locally

Requires .NET 8 SDK.

cd src
dotnet build
dotnet run

FAQ

TODO

• production usage ?
• route conflicts ?
• trailing slash

TODO

• proxy query parameters
• configurable logs
• https certificate
• proxy headers