gulp-tasks.md

Gulp tasks

The Aurelia CLI leverages Gulp as its task runner, providing a series of predefined tasks to streamline your development process. These tasks are located in the aurelia_project/tasks directory.

Task Execution

Tasks can be executed using the au command. For example:

• Build the application:

  au build

  Executes the Gulp task exported from aurelia_project/tasks/build.js.

• Run tests:

  au test

  Executes the task from aurelia_project/tasks/test.js.

Note: The CLI executes the task exported as default. You can export multiple tasks from a single file:

let task1 = () => {};
let task2 = () => {};

export { task1 as default, task2 };

Executing the above using au task1 will run task1.

Creating a New Task

You can create custom tasks to extend the CLI's functionality:

1. Create a new file: Add a .js or .ts file in the aurelia_project/tasks directory.

2. Export the task function:

   export default function myCustomTask() {
     // Task implementation
   }

3. Run the task: Use au myCustomTask to execute it.

Task Metadata

To integrate custom tasks with the CLI help system, define task metadata in a .json file with the same name as the task. For example, for build.js, create build.json:

{
  "name": "build",
  "description": "Builds and processes all application assets.",
  "flags": [
    {
      "name": "env",
      "description": "Sets the build environment.",
      "type": "string"
    },
    {
      "name": "watch",
      "description": "Watches source files for changes and refreshes the bundles automatically.",
      "type": "boolean"
    }
  ],
  "parameters": [
    {
      "name": "some-parameter",
      "description": "A description of this parameter."
    }
  ]
}

{% hint style="info" %} Only tasks with corresponding metadata JSON files appear in the au help command. {% endhint %}