Proposing that --single to npm run dev

[johnpapa]

I propose that the flag --single be added to the npm run dev script. This will allow fallback routing to work with the development server.

This is important as new folks use this template to get started. When they add client side routing and they refresh on a client side route, the current behavior will result in a 404. By adding --single this will "just work"

This is documented in the readme here, but I believe that this should be the default.

cc @mindrones @softchris

[lukeed]

This goes back and forth constantly.

[pngwn]

What is the argument against?

[pngwn]

So this is because it is dev only and if you deploy to a different static file server then you will be surprised, I guess.

I don’t know if there is a good solution to this. You probably should be using a different setup when it comes to deploying but on the same token, emulating desirable prod behaviour seems a reasonable ask.

I feel like some documentation on how best to deploy in a reliable manner might be a better solution than just disabling something makes for a nicer dev experience out of the box.

If people get confused about having no wildcard redirect to root when deploying then we could at least point them to the deployment documentation easily enough.

[lukeed]

The issue was that people would have missing assets and be viewing their homepage content, or get unhelpful "unexpected token" errors in their console for missing js files.

I think the solution is coming with sirv@1.0 which will have a default set of "ignore me" paths when SPA mode is enabled.

[antony]

@lukeed can this be closed since the bump to sirv 1.0.0 fixes the issue?

[lukeed]

Depends. The 1.0 removes the primary headache/reason we had for removing it, but may not be wanted by default. Think there are still mixed opinions on this amongst ourselves, but my opinion is that it should be on

[guidobouman]

What are the responsibilities of this template?

If you ask me, it would be this:

Allow an easy point to get started, no matter what your style is, be it separate pages or SPA's.

I think that goal has precedence over conformity with deployment environments.

Some environments even setup the redirects for you. Firebase for example asks if you plan to deploy an SPA, and will setup redirect rules automatically. For those environments, the template is suddenly not providing the easy setup it promises to deliver.