Webpack Build Time Optimisations for Nuxt.js!
Instantly speed up your Nuxt.js webpack build time.
Status: Stable v2 Made possible by my Sponsor Program Follow me @harlan_zw |
Previously: "nuxt-build-optimisations", see migration notes.
Can't use Vite with Nuxt yet?
Truly sad... But I do have some good news. While you won't be able to achieve
instant app starts anytime soon, nuxt-webpack-optimisations
can get things snappy again.
Webpack Optimisations
nuxt-webpack-optimisations
is a collection of webpack config changes that will let you speed up your build times and audit them.
By making smarter and riskier assumptions on how you want to run your environment in development, this module has been benchmarked
to reduce your build time by ~50% when cold
How risky are we talking
The riskier optimisations are enabled only on development and relate to over caching, which is always easy to fix with a good old rm -rf node_modules/.cache
Features
Features are enabled by their risk profile. The risk profile is the likelihood of issues coming up.
Tools
Always
- Nuxt config build.cache enabled
- Nuxt config build.parallel enabled - requires
risky: true
- webpacks best practices for performance
Dev
- esbuild replaces
babel-loader
- esbuild replaces
ts-loader
- postcss-preset-env is disabled
file-loader
replacesurl-loader
- Nuxt config build.hardsource enabled - requires
risky: true
Production
Compatibility
✔️ Nuxt v2✔️ Nuxt bridge⚠ Nuxt v3 Note: Vite needs to be disabled. You probably don't need this module.
Setup
Install the module.
yarn add -D nuxt-webpack-optimisations
# npm i -D nuxt-webpack-optimisations
Within your nuxt.config.ts
or nuxt.config.js
buildModules: [
'nuxt-webpack-optimisations',
],
Typescript
For Nuxt config typescript support, add the module within your tsconfig.json
.
{
"compilerOptions": {
"types": [
"nuxt-webpack-optimisations"
]
}
}
Usage
All non-risky features are enabled by default, only hardsource
and parallel
are disabled.
If you'd like to get more performance than the default you can try
// nuxt.config.ts
export default {
// ...
webpackOptimisations: {
features: {
// enable risky optimisations in dev only
hardSourcePlugin: process.env.NODE_ENV === 'development',
parallelPlugin: process.env.NODE_ENV === 'development',
}
}
}
Note: It's recommended to avoid running risky in non-development environments. Caching in CI environments can lead to issues.
Modifying Esbuild Behaviour
Out of the box the esbuild optimisations will use the default options, only changing the target for earlier browsers to support legacy code.
In most cases you won't need to change this, if you do then you'll need to configure the client, server and modern (if using) build separately.
Example:
// nuxt.config.ts
export default {
// ...
webpackOptimisations: {
// https://github.com/privatenumber/esbuild-loader#%EF%B8%8F-options
esbuildLoaderOptions: {
client: {
// any esbuild options can be set here
minifyIdentifiers: false,
// as well as any esbuild-loader options
target: 'es2015',
},
server: {
minifyIdentifiers: false,
target: 'node14',
},
// only needed if you're using modern: true
modern: {
target: 'es2017',
},
}
}
}
Something isn't working
A lot of the speed improvements are from heavy caching, if you have any issues the first thing you should do is clear your cache.
# Linux / Mac
rm -rf node_modules/.cache
# windows
rd /s "node_modules/.cache"
If you'd like to see what features are running you can enable the debug mode.
// nuxt.config.ts
export default {
webpackOptimisations: {
debug: true
}
}
Configuration
Features
Type: object
Default: Non-risky features enabled.
You can disable features if you'd like to skip optimisations.
// nuxt.config.ts
export default {
webpackOptimisations: {
features: {
// Note: just an example of keys, these are all keys and their default
postcssNoPolyfills: true,
esbuildLoader: true,
esbuildMinifier: true,
imageFileLoader: true,
webpackOptimisations: true,
cacheLoader: true,
hardSourcePlugin: false,
parallelPlugin: false,
}
}
}
esbuildLoaderOptions
Type: object
Default:
// nuxt.config.ts
export default {
// ...
webpackOptimisations: {
// https://github.com/privatenumber/esbuild-loader#%EF%B8%8F-options
esbuildLoaderOptions: {
client: {
target: 'es2015',
},
server: {
target: 'node14',
},
modern: {
target: 'es2015',
},
}
}
}
See esbuild-loader for full options.
esbuildMinifyOptions
Type: object
Default:
// nuxt.config.ts
export default {
// ...
webpackOptimisations: {
// https://github.com/privatenumber/esbuild-loader#minifyplugin
esbuildMinifyOptions: {
client: {
target: 'es2015',
},
server: {
target: 'node14',
},
modern: {
target: 'es2015',
},
}
},
}
See esbuild-loader for full options.
Measure
Type: boolean
or object
Default: false
When measure is enabled with true (options or environment variable), it will use the speed-measure-webpack-plugin
.
If the measure option is an object it is assumed to be speed-measure-webpack-plugin options.
// nuxt.config.ts
export default {
// ...
webpackOptimisations: {
measure: {
outputFormat: 'humanVerbose',
granularLoaderData: true,
loaderTopFiles: 10
}
}
}
You can use an environment variable to enable the measure as well.
package.json
{
"scripts": {
"measure": "export NUXT_MEASURE=true; nuxt dev"
}
}
Note: Some features are disabled with measure on, such as caching.
Measure Mode
Type: client
| server
| modern
| all
Default: client
Configure which build will be measured. Note that non-client builds may be buggy and mess with HMR.
// nuxt.config.ts
export default {
// ...
webpackOptimisations: {
measureMode: 'all'
}
}
Gotchas
Vue Property Decorator / Vue Class Component
Your babel-loader will be replaced with esbuild, which doesn't support class decorators in js.
You can either migrate your scripts to typescript or disabled the esbuild loader.
Disable Loader
// nuxt.config.ts
export default {
// ...
webpackOptimisations: {
features: {
esbuildLoader: false
}
}
}
Migrate to TypeScript
tsconfig.json
{
"experimentalDecorators": true
}
<script lang="ts">
import Vue from 'vue'
import Component from 'vue-class-component'
@Component
export default class HelloWorld extends Vue {
data () {
return {
hello: 'test'
}
}
}
</script>
Credits
Sponsors
License
MIT License © 2022 Harlan Wilton