Ignore paths to watch like node_modules

[tom-spalding]

Hi is it possible to pass an ignore path param to the tailwindcss CLI? Long story short; I think it would be nice to ignore all node_modules directories.

More context:

The following is in my Procfile.dev, css: bin/rails tailwindcss:watch. My usecase is to avoid watching files in a large submodule. I have the common inotify_add_watch issue. Instead of bumping up my watchers every day like so

sudo vim /etc/sysctl.conf
sudo sysctl -p /etc/sysctl.conf

I think it would be nice to ignore all node_modules. Even without the large submodule issue, this seems like a common usecase I hope.

bin/dev
10:25:37 web.1  | started with pid 14116
10:25:37 css.1  | started with pid 14117
10:25:38 web.1  | => Booting Puma
10:25:38 web.1  | => Rails 8.0.2 application starting in development 
10:25:38 web.1  | => Run `bin/rails server --help` for more startup options
10:25:38 web.1  | Puma starting in single mode...
10:25:38 web.1  | * Puma version: 6.6.0 ("Return to Forever")
10:25:38 web.1  | * Ruby version: ruby 3.4.1 (2024-12-25 revision 48d4efcb85) +YJIT +PRISM [x86_64-linux]
10:25:38 web.1  | *  Min threads: 3
10:25:38 web.1  | *  Max threads: 3
10:25:38 web.1  | *  Environment: development
10:25:38 web.1  | *          PID: 14116
10:25:38 web.1  | * Listening on http://127.0.0.1:3000
10:25:38 web.1  | * Listening on http://[::1]:3000
10:25:38 web.1  | Use Ctrl-C to stop
10:25:38 css.1  | sh: 1: watchman: not found
10:25:38 css.1  | error: inotify_add_watch on '/home/tom/projects/my_project/canvas/node_modules/@instructure/outcomes-ui/node_modules/@instructure/ui-flex/es/Flex/Item' failed: No space left on device
10:25:38 css.1  | 
10:25:38 css.1  | Bun v1.2.4 (Linux x64 baseline)
10:25:39 css.1  | exited with code 0
10:25:39 system | sending SIGTERM to all processes
10:25:39 web.1  | - Gracefully stopping, waiting for requests to finish
10:25:39 web.1  | Exiting
10:25:39 web.1  | terminated by SIGTERM

Thanks for the great project! - Tom

[tom-spalding]

Awesome. It doesn't appear impossible. I'll try to do some debugging.

There is a --content param in the tailwindcss-ruby package. I'm hoping to use it in commands.rb like this in Procfile.dev: css: bin/rails tailwindcss:watch --content '!./**/node_modules'. Its dying with a SIGTERM but I'll keep debugging and report back. Have to figure out how to view the stack trace first 😆

update:

If don't run with Foreman, can see the error.

bin/rails tailwindcss:watch --content '!./**/node_modules'
# invalid option: --content

[flavorjones]

@tom-spalding Hi, depending on whether you're running tailwind v3 or v4, the content parameter may not be supported. The README at tailwindcss-ruby shows the help contents from the v3 CLI, the v4 help contents are:

≈ tailwindcss v4.0.12

Usage:
  tailwindcss [--input input.css] [--output output.css] [--watch] [options…]

Options:
  -i, --input ··········· Input file
  -o, --output ·········· Output file [default: `-`]
  -w, --watch ··········· Watch for changes and rebuild as needed
  -m, --minify ·········· Optimize and minify the output
      --optimize ········ Optimize the output without minifying
      --cwd ············· The current working directory [default: `.`]
  -h, --help ············ Display usage information

and the v4 version has its own heuristics on what it chooses to pay attention to, please take a look at the docs at https://tailwindcss.com/docs/detecting-classes-in-source-files

What this all adds up to is, there's no good way to tell tailwind what not to watch. There was a related conversation on this topic in #491 and the brief summary is, the .gitignore file is supposed to be a way to control what gets ignored, but the tailwind "watch" command does not pay attention to this. The open upstream issue is tailwindlabs/tailwindcss#15684

I'm going to close this, since I don't believe there is anything this gem can easily to do change this behavior, but I'm happy to continue the conversation if you have questions.

[flavorjones]

Side note: I've updated the README for tailwindcss-ruby to have the v4 help output.

[tom-spalding]

Thanks @flavorjones, that's very helpful and makes sense.