How to install grunt and how to build script with it

Some time we need to set PATH variable for WINDOWS

%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Roaming\npm

After that test with where grunt

Note: Do not forget to close the command prompt window and reopen it.


To setup GruntJS build here is the steps:

  1. Make sure you have setup your package.json or setup new one:

    npm init
    
  2. Install Grunt CLI as global:

    npm install -g grunt-cli
    
  3. Install Grunt in your local project:

    npm install grunt --save-dev
    
  4. Install any Grunt Module you may need in your build process. Just for sake of this sample I will add Concat module for combining files together:

    npm install grunt-contrib-concat --save-dev
    
  5. Now you need to setup your Gruntfile.js which will describe your build process. For this sample I just combine two JS files file1.js and file2.js in the js folder and generate app.js:

    module.exports = function(grunt) {
    
        // Project configuration.
        grunt.initConfig({
            concat: {
                "options": { "separator": ";" },
                "build": {
                    "src": ["js/file1.js", "js/file2.js"],
                    "dest": "js/app.js"
                }
            }
        });
    
        // Load required modules
        grunt.loadNpmTasks('grunt-contrib-concat');
    
        // Task definitions
        grunt.registerTask('default', ['concat']);
    };
    
  6. Now you'll be ready to run your build process by following command:

    grunt
    

I hope this give you an idea how to work with GruntJS build.

NOTE:

You can use grunt-init for creating Gruntfile.js if you want wizard-based creation instead of raw coding for step 5.

To do so, please follow these steps:

npm install -g grunt-init
git clone https://github.com/gruntjs/grunt-init-gruntfile.git ~/.grunt-init/gruntfile
grunt-init gruntfile

For Windows users: If you are using cmd.exe you need to change ~/.grunt-init/gruntfile to %USERPROFILE%\.grunt-init\. PowerShell will recognize the ~ correctly.