devd: a local webserver for developers

• Reverse proxy and local file server
• Livereload with no browser addon required for both local files and reverse proxied apps
• Virtual hosting using the dedicated devd.io domain
• Logs geared for interactive use: coloring, filters, options to show headers and timing information
• Automatically selects a free port to listen on
• -o automatically opens a browser window
• Latency and bandwidth limit simulation

Quick start examples

Serve the current directory:

devd .

... and open it in the browser:

devd -o .

... and live reload when any file changes:

devd -lo .

Reverse proxy to http://localhost:8080, and livereload when any file in the src directory changes:

devd -w ./src http://localhost:8080

Routes

The devd command takes one or more route specifications as arguments. Routes have the basic format root=endpoint. Roots can be fixed, like "/favicon.ico", or subtrees, like "/images/" (note the trailing slash). Endpoints can be filesystem paths or URLs to upstream HTTP servers.

Here's a route that serves the directory ./static under /assets on the server:

/assets/=./static

To use the devd.io domain for virtual hosting, you can add a sub-domain to the root specification. We recognize subdomains by the fact that they don't start with a leading /. This route serves the /sttic directory under static.devd.io:[port]/assets, where port is the port your server is bound to.

static/assets=./static

All devd.io domains resolve to 127.0.0.1, so you can simply open the URL in your browser, and it will use the local server.

Reverse proxy specifcations are similar, but the endpoint specification is a URL. The following serves a local URL from the root app.devd.io/login:

app/login=http://localhost:8888

If the root specification is omitted, it is assumed to be "/", i.e. a pattern matching all paths. So, a simple directory specification serves the directory tree directly under devd.io:

devd ./static

Similarly, a simple reverse proxy can be started like this:

devd http://localhost:8888

Livereload

When livereload is enabled, devd injects a small script into HTML pages. This then listens for changes over a websocket connection, and reloads resources as needed. No browser addon is required, and livereload works even for reverse proxied apps. If only changes to CSS files are seen, devd will only reload external CSS resources, otherwise a full page reload is done.