[Feature]: Watch for webpack config changes in watch mode

[bebraw]

I'm submitting a feature request

Webpack version:
2.x

Please tell us about your environment:
OSX 10.x

Current behavior:
I'm not sure if this was discussed before, but it's one of the pain point for me in webpack workflow.

When config / config's dep is updated — hot reloadable server (or watch mode) must be restarted manually. Usually this hot reloadable server is not stand-alone process, but part of the bigger task or even lives inside docker container. And in case of config related change — the only way to pick this up is to restart everything.

Expected/desired behavior:

It'd be cool if webpack could track such changes and rebuild everything from scratch w/o killing current process.

What is the motivation / use case for changing the behavior?

It'll make easier:

• work on webpack config setup
• work w/ loader's configs, eg postcss plugin's options (js vars etc)

Moved from webpack/webpack#3153

[DanielaValero]

@ev1stensberg, @pksjce what you guys think, should this be part of our roadmap to v1 ?

[bebraw]

Minimum - document how to achieve it outside of the cli. I guess it depends on the overall goals and priority. I expect v1 would be more or less what it is right now and you can build more features in v1.1 and so on.

[DanielaValero]

I'd expect the same. So far, did not have time to look deeper into the already available options, but if this is in there, for sure will be part of v1. Otherwise, I'd agree with you by adding this to a v1.1 milestone

[evenstensberg]

Fixed #24

[nmschulte]

@ev1stensberg, does this apply to hot-module-reloading / webpack-dev-server? I'm looking for a solution to reset Webpack so it'll pick up the new configuration, and have HMR communicate this change appropriately (likely, a "you must manually refresh to pick up latest changes" type message).

How do we enable this in that scenario; is it as simple as watching the files that modify Webpack configuration? How does one use that without causing all watched files to incite a Webpack reset?

[evenstensberg]

The resave flag applies to HMR, indeed. Let me get back to you about your issues later this week :)

[yacinehmito]

@ev1stensberg How does #24 solve this issue? It seems like it's not related.

[evenstensberg]

webpack-cli -w -s will refresh everytime you save. I can see that this is actually for the webpack config itself. Insecure if this can be done on the CLI side of things.

[yacinehmito]

IMHO we should either reopen this issue or webpack/webpack#3153

[evenstensberg]

Pinging @bebraw for advice