hot-keeper

A hot reloader for CommonJS applications that allows you to keep specified variables between restarts.

Table of Contents

• Installation
• Features
• How It Works
• Why Only CommonJS?
• Usage
  • Command Line
  • Command Line Options
  • Configuration File
  • Keeping Variables Between Reloads
• Configuration Options
• Example
• License

Installation

pnpm add hot-keeper

Or using npm:

npm install hot-keeper

Or using yarn:

yarn add hot-keeper

Features

• Hot reloads your CommonJS application when files change
• Preserves specified variables between reloads
• Supports both HTTP and HTTPS servers
• Configurable through JSON config file and/or command line arguments
• Works with Express, Koa, and other Node.js server frameworks

How It Works

hot-keeper is designed to provide hot-reloading for Node.js applications written in CommonJS (CJS), while allowing you to persist certain variables (such as caches, compilers, or other expensive-to-create objects) between restarts. This is especially useful for development servers, build tools, or any scenario where you want to avoid re-initializing heavy resources on every code change.

Why Only CommonJS?

hot-keeper relies on Node's require.cache to control which modules are reloaded and which are kept alive between reloads. This is only possible with CommonJS modules, because:

• CommonJS: Every require() call is cached in require.cache, which can be programmatically cleared or preserved for specific modules. This allows us to keep the state of the keeper.cjs module while reloading everything else.
• ES Modules: Node.js does not expose a module cache for ES Modules, and there is no supported way to clear or preserve module state between reloads. As a result, variable persistence and fine-grained cache control are not possible with ESM.

The only way to leverage this module for variable persistance is to first transpile your ESM server code into CJS using tools like esbuild or SWC.

Usage

Command Line

Basic usage:

pnpm hot-keeper <entry-file> [options]

Command Line Options

Options:
  -c, --config <path>     Path to configuration file
  -p, --port <number>     Port to run server on
  -s, --secure            Use HTTPS instead of HTTP
  -w, --watch <paths...>  Directories to watch for changes
  -e, --exclude <paths...> Directories to exclude from watching
  --cert <path>           Path to SSL certificate file
  --key <path>            Path to SSL key file
  -h, --help              Display help
  -V, --version           Display version

Examples:

# Basic usage with default config file
pnpm hot-keeper app.js

# Specify config file
pnpm hot-keeper app.js -c config.json

# Command line options override config
pnpm hot-keeper app.js -p 8000 -s --watch ./src ./api

# Configure HTTPS
pnpm hot-keeper app.js -s --cert ./certs/cert.pem --key ./certs/key.pem

Configuration File

Create a hot-keeper.json file in your project root (or specify a custom path with -c):

{
  "secure": false,
  "port": 3000,
  "watch": ["./src", "./lib"],
  "excludeWatch": ["node_modules", ".git"],
  "certs": {
    "key": "./certs/key.pem",
    "cert": "./certs/cert.pem"
  }
}

Keeping Variables Between Reloads

In your application, require the keep and kept functions:

const { keep, kept } = require("hot-keeper/lib/keeper.cjs");

// After restart, retrieve the variable
const storedCache = kept("myCache", {}); // Second parameter is the default value

// Store a variable that will persist between reloads
keep("myCache", {});

Configuration Options

Option	Type	Default	Description
secure	boolean	false	Whether to use HTTPS
port	number	3000 (HTTP) or 443 (HTTPS)	Port to run server on
watch	array|string	['./']	Directories to watch for changes
excludeWatch	array	['node_modules', '.git']	Directories to exclude from watching
certs	object	{ key: './certs/key.pem', cert: './certs/cert.pem' }	Paths to SSL certificates

Example

Basic Express Application

const express = require("express");
const { keep, kept } = require("hot-keeper/lib/keeper.cjs");

let webpackCompiler = kept("webpackCompiler", null);

if (!webpackCompiler) {
  webpackCompiler = createWebpackCompiler();
  keep("webpackCompiler", webpackCompiler);
}

const app = express();

app.get("/", (req, res) => {
  res.send("Hello, hot reloading world!");
});

module.exports = app;

License

MIT