servehere

Host a webserver from the local directory, immediately

tl;dr

npm install -g servehere
servehere

Now hit http://localhost:4400.

Command-line arguments

--port / -p: Set the port. Defaults to 4400. Ports below 1024 may need account privileges on unix machines.

--directory / -d: Set the directory to serve from. Defaults to ./.

--jsonapi / -j: Pretend to be a JSON api; usually needs -c (send application/json for files without extensions; default is text/html)

--cors / -c: Emit universal CORS headers

--silent / -s: Be silent (no output; default is verbose)

--haltroute / -z: Hook /z-terminate as a route that will halt the server when opened

--help / -h: Show help in the console

Usage examples

Run a server, sharing the current directory on default host localhost and default port 4400
- servehere
Run a server, sharing the current directory on default host localhost and custom port 12345
- servehere -p 12345
Run a server, shipping CORS allow-all headers, set up as a JSON api, shipping the contents of a subdirectory "fixtures"
- servehere -c -j -d fixtures/
Run a server in silent mode (don't write anything in console) with a halt route
- servehere -s -z

... why?

Pretty often I have to put stuff on my webserver because I want to figure out how its AJAX or websockets work, but CORS and localhost don't play well together.

Also, I'm mildly annoyed at how often I see JavaScript projects install Python to get simple_server.

Also, this is a quick way to stub the JSON backend of something when I want to start with the frontend, or for testing.

Polemic