Webpack --watch and launching nodemon?

1. Install the following dependencies:

npm install npm-run-all webpack nodemon

2. Configure your package.json file to something as seen below:

package.json

{
  ...

  "scripts": {
    "start"        : "npm-run-all --parallel watch:server watch:build",
    "watch:build"  : "webpack --watch",
    "watch:server" : "nodemon \"./dist/index.js\" --watch \"./dist\""
  },

  ...

}

After doing so, you can easily run your project by using npm start.

Don't forget config WatchIgnorePlugin for webpack to ignore ./dist folder.

Dependencies

1. npm-run-all - A CLI tool to run multiple npm-scripts in parallel or sequential.
2. webpack - webpack is a module bundler. Its main purpose is to bundle JavaScript files for usage in a browser, yet it is also capable of transforming, bundling, or packaging just about any resource or asset.
3. nodemon - Simple monitor script for use during development of a node.js app.

I like the simplicity of nodemon-webpack-plugin

webpack.config.js

const NodemonPlugin = require('nodemon-webpack-plugin')

module.exports = {
  plugins: [new NodemonPlugin()]
}

then just run webpack with the watch flag

webpack --watch

Faced the same problem and found the next solution - webpack-shell-plugin. It

allows you to run any shell commands before or after webpack builds

So, thats my scripts in package.json:

"scripts": {
      "clean": "rimraf build",
      "prestart": "npm run clean",
      "start": "webpack --config webpack.client.config.js",
      "poststart": "webpack --watch --config webpack.server.config.js",
}

If I run 'start' script it launches next script sequence: clean -> start -> poststart. And there is part of 'webpack.server.config.js':

var WebpackShellPlugin = require('webpack-shell-plugin');

...
if (process.env.NODE_ENV !== 'production') {
    config.plugins.push(new WebpackShellPlugin({onBuildEnd: ['nodemon build/server.js --watch build']}));
}
...

"onBuildEnd" event fires only once after first build, rebuilds are not trigger "onBuildEnd", so nodemon works as intended