Grunt tasks for building apps with the Aerobatic HTML5 cloud platform

This plugin requires Grunt ~0.4.5

If you haven't used Grunt before, be sure to check out the Getting Started guide, as it explains how to create a Gruntfile as well as install and use Grunt plugins. Once you're familiar with that process, you may install this plugin with this command:

npm install grunt-aerobatic --save-dev

Once the plugin has been installed, it may be enabled inside your Gruntfile with this line of JavaScript:

grunt.loadNpmTasks('grunt-aerobatic');

In your project's Gruntfile, add a section named aerobatic to the data object passed into grunt.initConfig().

grunt.initConfig({
  aerobatic: {
    deploy: {
      src: ['index.html', 'dist/*.*', 'favicons/*', 'partials/*.html', 'images/*.jpeg'],
    },
    sim: {
      index: 'index.html',
      port: 3000,
      livereload: true
    }
  }
});

The deploy target deploys the current local sources as a new version. By default this new version will only be staged in production, but not yet receiving live traffic. To direct live traffic to the new version you log into your Aerobatic app dashboard and configure the traffic control rules to specify this version should receive some or all of the traffic. The grunt log output will include a preview URL that will force the new version to be used so you can immediately see your changes live in production without impacting real users.

If you just want to push your changes to the live site and bypass traffic control configuration, you can specify the --cowboy flag.

Type: Array Specifies the files that should be deployed. Typically you will use the output of other grunt tasks that have built the assets for the production environment, i.e. grunt-contrib-uglify, grunt-contrib-sass, etc.

####Command Options --cowboy - Force the new version to take 100% of live traffic immedietely. Useful when you are just getting started and the risks of bypassing the staging process is low or you if that's just the way you roll.

--name - The name of the new version. Defaults to an auto-generated timestamp.

--message - Optional short message describing the version.

--open - Launch a browser to the version preview URL upon successful deploy.

It is suggested that you configure a grunt alias task called deploy that builds your deployment assets then invokes aerobatic:deploy.

grunt.registerTask('deploy', ['build', 'aerobatic:deploy']);

Sample Call

grunt deploy --live --name '1.2.10' --message 'New messaging feature'

The sim target is used to run a local simulator expressjs server which allows development of front end assets locally while the main app entry page is hosted in the cloud. By working in a fully integrated mode you are much more likely to uncover integration issues while you build your app rather than post-deployment. Generally you will keep the simulator running the whole time you work so your browser always reflects your latest changes.

In simulator mode you would work off a URL in the format: http://<your_app_name>.aerobaticapp.com?sim=1&user=<your_user_id>&reload=1

The aerobatic platform detects the sim=1 and automatically repoints your scripts, stylesheets, templates, images, etc. to http://localhost:3000.

####index Type: String Default value: index.html

The name of the index document representing the entry point to your single page app.

Type: Number Default value: 3000

The port number to run the simulator on.

Type: Boolean Default value: false

Automatically adds the livereload script in the HTML source of the development URL. Designed to be used in conjunction with the grunt-contrib-watch task.

<script src="//localhost:35729/livereload.js"></script>

####Command Options --open - Launch a browser to the simulator URL. Useful the first time you run grunt sim, after that you may choose to simply refresh the

One of the powerful workflows grunt enables is watching your filesystem for changes, performing any necessary pre-processing, and automatically refreshing your browser. The aerobatic sim task can work in parallel with the livereload capabilities of the watch task.

To enable aerobatic:sim and watch to work in tandem, the suggested configuration is to define an alias task called sim which runs both tasks with an extra sync option specified on sim. The sync option prevents sim from blocking grunt from running the subsequent watch task. When grunt is killed, both the watch and the express simulator server are terminated together.

grunt.registerTask('sim', ['aerobatic:sim:sync', 'watch']);

Sample Call

grunt sim --open