Using Grunt with NodeJS

You may have work with Ant or Rake to configure automation of repetitive tasks. For NodeJS, Grunt has become one of the easiest way to automate your repetitive tasks.
I have explained how to use Grunt with ASP.Net MVC project in my earlier post. In this post I will explain how to use Grunt with your NodeJS project.
First you need to install grunt-cli package globally.

And then install grunt as a npm package to your project.

As developers we may need to run our project in development mode or test mode. We can do that easily using grunt-env module. Install grunt-env as npm package.

In the GruntFile.js you can configure environment specific things easily.

When continuously developing your application, you will need to stop and start your application server frequently. To help with this task, there is a tool called Nodemon, which you can integrate to your NodeJS application using Grunt. First install nodemon as a npm package.

Then you need to configure nodemon grunt task.

In the options property, we configure Nodemon's operation and specify to watch both the HTML and JavaScript files that are placed in your config and app folders.
Runt grunt command in command prompt against to your project location.

Now do some changes in server.js file or any other *.js or *.html file which are in given locations. You do not have to restart your node server to check your changes. nodemon will automatically handle that for you. You will see a message for that in the command prompt.

Download Source Code from GitHub.