Installation

$ npm install webpack -g

The webpack command is now available globally.

Pure CLI

webpack <entry> <output>

entry

Pass a file or a request string. You can pass multiple entries (every entry is loaded on startup).

If you pass a pair in the form <name>=<request> you can create an additional entry point.

It will be mapped to the configuration option entry.

output

Pass a path to a file.

It will be mapped to the configuration options output.path and output.filename.

Configuration options

Many configuration options are mapped from CLI options. I. e. --debug maps to debug: true, or --output-library-target to output.libraryTarget.

You see a list of all options, if you don't pass any option.

Plugins

Some plugins are mapped to CLI options. I. e. --define <string>=<string> maps to the DefinePlugin.

You see a list of all options, if you don't pass any option.

Development shortcut -d

Equals to --debug --devtool source-map --output-pathinfo

Production shortcut -p

Equals to --optimize-minimize --optimize-occurence-order

Watch mode --watch

Watches all dependencies and recompile on change.

Configuration file --config example.config.js

Specifies a different configuration file to pick up. Use this if you want to specify something different than webpack.config.js, which is the default.

Display options

--progress

Display a compilation progress to stderr.

--json

Write JSON to stdout instead of a human readable format.

Hint: Try to put the result into the analyse tool.

--no-color

Disable colors to display the statistics.

--sort-modules-by, --sort-chunks-by, --sort-assets-by

Sort the modules/chunks/assets list by a column.

--display-chunks

Display the separation of the modules into chunks.

--display-reasons

Show more information about the reasons why a module is included.

--display-error-details

Show more information about the errors. I. e. this shows which paths are tried while resolving a module.

--display-modules

Show hidden modules. Modules are hidden from output by default when they live inside directories called ["node_modules", "bower_components", "jam", "components"]

Profiling

If you wish to have a more in-depth idea of what is taking how long, you can use the --profile switch. This will cause WebPack to display more detailed timing informations. Combine this with the switches above to get a very detailed message and information set, which will contain the timings of your modules.

The timing "keys"

  • factory: The time it took to build the module information.
  • building: The time that was spent building the module (loaders, for example).
  • dependencies: The time that was spent gathering and connecting the dependencies.

Additional configuration options

When using the CLI it's possible to have the following options in the configuration file. They passed in other ways when using the node.js API.

watch

Enter watch mode, which rebuilds on file change.

watchOptions.aggregateTimeout

Delay the rebuilt after the first change. Value is a time in ms.

Default: 300

watchOptions.poll

true: use polling

number: use polling with specified interval

Default: undefined

stats

Display options. See [[node.js API]] Stats.toString() for more details.