Enjoy SharePoint Framework Development with Spfx-fast-serve

I started developing SharePoint Framework solutions back in 2018. And like many other developers, I was always frustrated by how slow the development process felt. For example, you would add a line of code and then wait for up to five minutes before you could see the changes you had made. I would use this time to grab a fresh cup of coffee or check my mailbox. Needless to say, by the time the "gulp serve" task was done, I was too distracted doing something completely unrelated. As a result, a minor change could take hours. 

Despite some performance improvements over the last few years, it is still not fast enough to enjoy the SharePoint Framework (SPFx). That is unless you are already using spfx-fast-serve. After spending a few moments to set it up, all my SharePoint Framework projects are now serving up to twenty times faster! I am blown away by how fast I can now develop using SPFx.

If you are still here, you are probably curious how to get spfx-fast-serve working.

•  First, run the following command:

npm install spfx-fast-serve -g

• Open your SharePoint Framework solution in a command line. Then run

spfx-fast-serve

• Run

npm install

• At last, run

npm run serve

Now enjoy your blazing fast SharePoint framework development.

Note that you can always continue using the good old gulp serve command. However, you will have no reason to do so since it works ten times slower.

In the following table, you can see how much faster spfx-fast-serve is in comparison to the classic gulp serve task:

Do you have other tips and tricks for the development process? Please, let me know!

Credits

• Sergei Sergeev (author of spfx-fast-serve)
• Randall Munroe (Compiling comic)