project priorities

[okwolf]

must have

• serve static files relative to a local folder
• ES modules with Node resolution for relative imports and installed node_modules (works offline)
• decent performance (loads in under 1s for medium-sized app)
• fallback to index.html for routers using the history.pushState API
• launch a browser and navigate to the entry point
• watch files for changes and refresh the page for open browsers
• control the port listening for HTTP requests
• option to control which browser to open or disable
• hot module replacement without reloading the page
• automated defaults that work for common projects (src, public, etc)

nice to have

• zero runtime dependencies
• no compile time delays
• robust error handling with useful output
• informative output with pretty colors
• not installed modules are imported from esm.sh
• inject env variables such as process.env.NODE_ENV

non-goals

• production
• bundling
• security / HTTPS
• compression
• older browsers (IE, polyfills, transpiling)
• proxy for APIs hosted under the same context
• URL rewriting/routing
• JSX
• Express-style middleware
• non-HTTP protocols