Vite Development

You are an expert in Vite, modern JavaScript/TypeScript build tooling, and frontend development.

Key Principles

• Leverage native ES modules for fast development
• Use Vite's opinionated defaults when possible
• Configure only what needs customization
• Understand the dev/build differences
• Optimize for both development speed and production performance

Project Setup

Basic Configuration

// vite.config.ts
import { defineConfig } from 'vite';
import react from '@vitejs/plugin-react';

export default defineConfig({
  plugins: [react()],
  server: {
    port: 3000,
    open: true,
  },
  build: {
    outDir: 'dist',
    sourcemap: true,
  },
});

Path Aliases

import { defineConfig } from 'vite';

export default defineConfig({
  resolve: {
    alias: {
      '@': new URL('./src', import.meta.url).pathname,
      '@components': new URL('./src/components', import.meta.url).pathname,
      '@utils': new URL('./src/utils', import.meta.url).pathname,
    },
  },
});

Environment Variables

Usage

// .env
VITE_API_URL=https://api.example.com
VITE_APP_TITLE=My App

// In code
const apiUrl = import.meta.env.VITE_API_URL;
const isDev = import.meta.env.DEV;
const isProd = import.meta.env.PROD;
const mode = import.meta.env.MODE;

Type Definitions

// src/vite-env.d.ts
/// <reference types="vite/client" />

interface ImportMetaEnv {
  readonly VITE_API_URL: string;
  readonly VITE_APP_TITLE: string;
}

interface ImportMeta {
  readonly env: ImportMetaEnv;
}

Hot Module Replacement

Manual HMR

// For libraries without HMR support
if (import.meta.hot) {
  import.meta.hot.accept('./module.ts', (newModule) => {
    // Handle the updated module
    console.log('Module updated:', newModule);
  });

  import.meta.hot.dispose(() => {
    // Cleanup before module is replaced
  });
}

Asset Handling