[Bug]: Shopify CLI performs full-page reload instead of hot-reload

[aiacciu87]

Please confirm that you have:

• Searched existing issues to see if your issue is a duplicate. (If you’ve found a duplicate issue, feel free to add additional information in a comment on it.)
• Reproduced the issue in the latest CLI version.

In which of these areas are you experiencing a problem?

Theme

Expected behavior

When making modifications to local files while running shopify theme dev --live-reload=hot-reload, the browser should update the modified elements dynamically without performing a full-page reload.

Actual behavior

Regardless of whether--live-reload=hot-reload is specified, Shopify CLI consistently performs a full-page reload instead of applying hot-reload. The changes appear in the browser, then it refreshes the entire page. This disrupts the workflow and slows down development.

Verbose output

verbose.txt

Reproduction steps

1. Run shopify theme dev --live-reload=hot-reload on a Shopify theme.
2. Open the theme in Chrome.
3. Modify a file locally (e.g., CSS or Liquid file).
4. Observe that the changes appear briefly, but the page reloads entirely.

Operating System

Mac OS Sequoia 15.3

Shopify CLI version (shopify --version)

3.76.1

Shell

No response

Node version (run node -v if you're not sure)

v23.9.0

What language and version are you using in your application?

No response

[karreiro]

👋 Hey @aiacciu87,

Thank you for reporting this!

The CLI triggers hot-reload events only for sections. Thus, updates in layout, config, and snippet files will trigger a full reload event. Even though, when running in hot-reload mode, the full reload doesn't need to wait and isn't blocked by the file being fully uploaded to the Shopify platform.

I've noticed in the --verbose output that that was the case, so with this clarification in mind, I'm closing this issue.

Thank you for bringing this up tho!