Vite plugins extends Rollup's well-designed plugin interface with a few extra vite-specific options. As a result, you can write a Vite plugin once and have it work for both dev and build.
**It is recommended to go through [Rollup's plugin documentation](https://rollupjs.org/guide/en/#plugin-development) first before reading the sections below.**
It is common convention to author a Vite/Rollup plugin as a factory function that returns the actual plugin object. The function can accept options which allows users to customize the behavior of the plugin.
:::
### Serving a Virtual File
```js
export default function myPlugin() {
const vitualFileId = '@my-virtual-file'
return {
name: 'my-plugin', // required, will show up in warnings and errors
resolveId(id) {
if (id === vitualFileId) {
return vitualFileId
}
},
load(id) {
if ((id = vitualFileId)) {
return `export const msg = "from virtual file"`
}
}
}
}
```
### Transforming Custom File Types
```js
export default function myPlugin() {
return {
name: 'transform-file',
transform(src, id) {
if (!/\.(my-file-ext)$/.test(id)) {
return {
code: compileFileToJS(src),
map: null // provide source map if available
}
}
}
}
}
```
## Universal Hooks
During dev, the Vite dev server creates a plugin container that invokes [Rollup Build Hooks](https://rollupjs.org/guide/en/#build-hooks) the same way Rollup does it.
The following hooks are called once on server start:
Note that the [`moduleParsed`](https://rollupjs.org/guide/en/#moduleparsed) hook is **not** called during dev, because Vite avoids full AST parses for better performance.
[Output Generation Hooks](https://rollupjs.org/guide/en/#output-generation-hooks) (except `closeBundle`) are **not** called during dev. You can think of Vite's dev server as only calling `rollup.rollup()` without calling `bundle.generate()`.
## Vite Specific Hooks
Vite plugins can also provide hooks that serve Vite-specific purposes. These hooks are ignored by Rollup.
Modify Vite config before it's resolved. The hook receives the raw user config (CLI options merged with config file). It can return a partial config object that will be deeply merged into existing config, or directly mutate the config (if the default merging cannot achieve the desired result).
// mutate the config directly (use only when merging doesn't work)
const mutateConfigPlugin = () => ({
name: 'mutate-config',
config(config) {
config.root = __dirname
}
})
```
::: warning Note
User plugins are resolved before running this hook so injecting other plugins inside the `config` hook will have no effect.
:::
### `configResolved`
- **Type:** `(config: ResolvedConfig) => void`
- **Kind:** `sync`, `sequential`
Called after the Vite config is resolved. Use this hook to read and store the final resolved config. It is also useful when the plugin needs to do something different based the command is being run.
Hook for configuring the dev server. The most common use case is adding custom middlewares to the internal [connect](https://github.com/senchalabs/connect) app:
```js
const myPlugin = () => ({
name: 'configure-server',
configureServer(server) {
server.app.use((req, res, next) => {
// custom handle request...
})
}
})
```
**Injecting Post Middleware**
The `configureServer` hook is called before internal middlewares are installed, so the custom middlewares will run before internal middlewares by default. If you want to inject a middleware **after** internal middlewares, you can return a function from `configureServer`, which will be called after internal middlewares are installed:
```js
const myPlugin = () => ({
name: 'configure-server',
configureServer(server) {
// return a post hook that is called after internal middlewares are
// installed
return () => {
server.app.use((req, res, next) => {
// custom handle request...
})
}
}
})
```
**Storing Server Access**
In some cases, other plugin hooks may need access to the dev server instance (e.g. accessing the web socket server, the file system watcher, or the module graph). This hook can also be used to store the server instance for access in other hooks:
Dedicated hook for transforming `index.html`. The hook receives the current HTML string and a transform context. The context exposes the [`ViteDevServer`](./api-javascript#vitedevserver) instance during dev, and exposes the Rollup output bundle during build.
The hook can be async and can return one of the following:
- Transformed HTML string
- An array of tag descriptor objects (`{ tag, attrs, children }`) to inject to the existing HTML. Each tag can also specify where it should be injected to (default is prepending to `<head>`)
Perform custom HMR update handling. The hook receives the following arguments:
1. The changed file path
2. An array of modules that are affected by the changed file. It's an array because a single file may map to multiple served modules (e.g. Vue SFCs).
3. An async read function that returns the content of the file. This is provided because on some systems, the file change callback may fire too fast before the editor finishes updating the file and direct `fs.readFile` will return empty content. The read function passed in normalizes this behavior.
4. The [`ViteDevServer`](./api-javascript#vitedevserver) instance.
Client code should register corresponding handler using the [HMR API](./api-hmr) (this could be injected by the same plugin's `transform` hook):
```js
if (import.meta.hot) {
import.meta.hot.on('special-update', data => {
// perform custom update
})
}
```
## Plugin Ordering
A Vite plugin can additionally specify an `enforce` property (similar to webpack loaders) to adjust its application order. The value of `enforce` can be either `"pre"` or `"post"`. The resolved plugins will be in the following order:
- Alias
- User plugins with `enforce: 'pre'`
- Vite internal plugins
- User plugins without enforce value
- Vite build-specific plugins
- User plugins with `enforce: 'post'`
## Rollup Plugin Compatiblity
A fair number of Rollup plugins will work directly as a Vite plugin (e.g. `@rollup/plugin-alias` or `@rollup/plugin-json`), but not all of them, since some plugin hooks do not make sense in an unbundled dev server context.
In general, as long as a rollup plugin fits the following criterias then it should just work as a Vite plugin:
- It doesn't use the [`moduleParsed`](https://rollupjs.org/guide/en/#moduleparsed) hook.
- It doesn't have strong coupling between bundle-phase hooks and output-phase hooks.
If a Rollup plugin only makes sense for the build phase, then it can be specified under `build.rollupOptions.plugins` instead.
