Can't affirmatively specify files being watched

[jcushman]

Describe the bug

I have a Django project with a large number of files in the working directory, so if I run vite dev the file watcher takes a lot of CPU and soon runs out of file handles. To avoid this I would like to specify particular paths for Vite to watch.

Two previous requests for this feature were closed because a workaround exists (here and here). But I can't figure out what the workaround is (and in one case I don't think they found one, just used a manual blocklist).

My initial thought from the watch.ignored documentation was that something like this in npm create vite@latest vite-base -- --template vue should work to restrict the watcher to the src directory:

import { defineConfig } from 'vite'
import vue from '@vitejs/plugin-vue'

// https://vitejs.dev/config/
export default defineConfig({
  plugins: [vue()],
  server: {
    watch: {
      ignored: [
        '**',
        '!**/src/**',
        '!**/vite.config.js'
      ],
    }
  },
})

But when I run this in the vanilla vue template, changes to all files are ignored. I tried some variations like including absolute paths (see reproduction link) and couldn't get those to work either.

Can others reproduce this problem, or am I messing something up? If this workaround doesn't work, maybe it's worth revisiting the option to override paths passed to chokidar.watch.

(In the meantime I think my workaround is to list the directory in js and provide everything to ignored except the desired paths. Messy, but better than having to manually maintain a list of Django files or rearrange Django's directory structure.)

((Eagerly awaiting the obvious thing I've missed. 😆))

Reproduction

https://stackblitz.com/edit/vitejs-vite-voaybn?file=vite.config.js

System Info

System:
    OS: macOS 12.2.1
    CPU: (16) x64 Intel(R) Core(TM) i9-9980HK CPU @ 2.40GHz
    Memory: 1001.38 MB / 32.00 GB
    Shell: 3.3.1 - /usr/local/bin/fish
  Binaries:
    Node: 17.9.0 - /usr/local/bin/node
    Yarn: 1.22.5 - /usr/local/bin/yarn
    npm: 8.5.5 - /usr/local/bin/npm
  Browsers:
    Chrome: 100.0.4896.127
    Edge: 100.0.1185.39
    Firefox: 99.0.1
    Firefox Developer Edition: 100.0
    Safari: 15.3
  npmPackages:
    @vitejs/plugin-vue: ^2.3.1 => 2.3.1
    vite: ^2.9.5 => 2.9.5

Used Package Manager

npm

Logs

No response

Validations

• Follow our Code of Conduct
• Read the Contributing Guidelines.
• Read the docs.
• Check that there isn't already an issue that reports the same bug to avoid creating a duplicate.
• Make sure this is a Vite issue and not a framework-specific issue. For example, if it's a Vue SFC related bug, it should likely be reported to https://github.com/vuejs/core instead.
• Check that this is a concrete bug. For Q&A open a GitHub Discussion or join our Discord Chat Server.
• The provided reproduction is a minimal reproducible example of the bug.

[sapphi-red]

Vite does nothing special with this.

vite/packages/vite/src/node/server/index.ts

Lines 319 to 330 in fc89057

	const { ignored = [], ...watchOptions } = serverConfig.watch || {}
	const watcher = chokidar.watch(path.resolve(root), {
	ignored: [
	'**/node_modules/**',
	'**/.git/**',
	...(Array.isArray(ignored) ? ignored : [ignored])
	],
	ignoreInitial: true,
	ignorePermissionErrors: true,
	disableGlobbing: true,
	...watchOptions
	}) as FSWatcher

I dont know if this behavior is intended by chokidar.
But you can use a function to achieve what you are looking for.

import { defineConfig, normalizePath } from 'vite'
import * as path from 'path'
import * as url from 'url'

export default defineConfig({
  server: {
    watch: {
      ignored: (p) => {
        const relativePath = path.relative(
          path.resolve(url.fileURLToPath(import.meta.url), '..'),
          p
        )
        return (
          relativePath !== '' &&
          relativePath !== 'src' &&
          !normalizePath(relativePath).startsWith('src/')
        )
      }
    }
  }
})

[bluwy]

Agree with @sapphi-red too. It seems that chokidar doesn't support the negation pattern for ignored, using a function like suggested is the way to go.