Overhaul SSR caching, dev hot-reload, and server memory footprint

bin/catalyst.js

@@ -6,11 +6,11 @@ process.on("unhandledRejection", (err) => {
 const { spawnSync } = require("node:child_process")
 const args = process.argv.slice(2)
 const scriptIndex = args.findIndex(
-    (x) => x === "build" || x === "start" || x === "serve" || x === "devBuild" || x === "devServe"
+    (x) => x === "build" || x === "start" || x === "serve" || x === "devBuild" || x === "devServe" || x === "cleanCache"
 )
 const script = scriptIndex === -1 ? args[0] : args[scriptIndex]
 const nodeArgs = scriptIndex > 0 ? args.slice(0, scriptIndex) : []
-if (["build", "start", "serve", "devBuild", "devServe"].includes(script)) {
+if (["build", "start", "serve", "devBuild", "devServe", "cleanCache"].includes(script)) {
     const result = spawnSync(
         process.execPath,
         nodeArgs.concat(require.resolve("../dist/scripts/" + script)).concat(args.slice(scriptIndex + 1)),
@@ -34,5 +34,5 @@ if (["build", "start", "serve", "devBuild", "devServe"].includes(script)) {
     }
     process.exit(result.status)
 } else {
-    console.log('Unknown script "' + script + '".')
+    console.log('Unknown script "' + script + '". Available: build, start, serve, devBuild, devServe, cleanCache')
 }

src/scripts/cleanCache.js

@@ -0,0 +1,30 @@
+const fs = require("fs")
+const path = require("path")
+
+function cleanCache() {
+    const catalystCacheDir = path.join(process.cwd(), "node_modules/catalyst-core")
+    const webpackCacheDir = path.join(catalystCacheDir, ".cache/webpack")
+    const loadableStats = path.join(catalystCacheDir, "loadable-stats.json")
+
+    let cleaned = false
+
+    if (fs.existsSync(webpackCacheDir)) {
+        fs.rmSync(webpackCacheDir, { recursive: true, force: true })
+        console.log("[Catalyst] Removed webpack filesystem cache.")
+        cleaned = true
+    }
+
+    if (fs.existsSync(loadableStats)) {
+        fs.rmSync(loadableStats)
+        console.log("[Catalyst] Removed loadable-stats.json.")
+        cleaned = true
+    }
+
+    if (!cleaned) {
+        console.log("[Catalyst] Nothing to clean — cache is already empty.")
+    } else {
+        console.log("[Catalyst] Clean complete. Next dev start will be a full rebuild.")
+    }
+}
+
+cleanCache()

src/scripts/start.js

@@ -15,10 +15,12 @@ function start() {
 
     const command = `
     node ./dist/scripts/checkVersion
-    npx babel-node -r ./dist/scripts/loadScriptsBeforeServerStarts.js ./dist/webpack/development.client.babel --no-warnings=ExperimentalWarning --no-warnings=BABEL & npx babel-node -r ./dist/scripts/loadScriptsBeforeServerStarts.js ./dist/server/startServer.js --extensions .js,.ts,.jsx,.tsx --watch-path=${process.env.PWD}/server --watch-path=${process.env.PWD}/src --ignore='__IGNORE__' --no-warnings=ExperimentalWarning --no-warnings=BABEL
+    npx babel-node -r ./dist/scripts/loadScriptsBeforeServerStarts.js ./dist/webpack/development.client.babel --no-warnings=ExperimentalWarning --no-warnings=BABEL & npx babel-node -r ./dist/scripts/loadScriptsBeforeServerStarts.js ./dist/server/startServer.js --extensions .js,.ts,.jsx,.tsx --ignore='__IGNORE__' --no-warnings=ExperimentalWarning --no-warnings=BABEL
     `
 
     if (isWindows) {
+        // Windows doesn't support `&` for parallel processes in a single shell command,
+        // so we use two non-blocking spawn() calls instead of a single spawnSync().
         spawn(
             `node ./dist/scripts/checkVersion && start /b npx babel-node -r ./dist/scripts/loadScriptsBeforeServerStarts.js ./dist/webpack/development.client.babel --no-warnings=ExperimentalWarning --no-warnings=BABEL`,
             [],
@@ -39,7 +41,7 @@ function start() {
         )
 
         spawn(
-            `node ./dist/scripts/checkVersion && npx babel-node -r ./dist/scripts/loadScriptsBeforeServerStarts.js ./dist/server/startServer.js --watch-path=${process.cwd()}/server --watch-path=${process.cwd()}/src --ignore='__IGNORE__' --no-warnings=ExperimentalWarning --no-warnings=BABEL`,
+            `node ./dist/scripts/checkVersion && npx babel-node -r ./dist/scripts/loadScriptsBeforeServerStarts.js ./dist/server/startServer.js --extensions .js,.ts,.jsx,.tsx --ignore='__IGNORE__' --no-warnings=ExperimentalWarning --no-warnings=BABEL`,
             [],
             {
                 cwd: dirname,

src/server/expressServer.js

@@ -13,23 +13,18 @@ const env = process.env.NODE_ENV || "development"
 
 const app = express()
 
-// This middleware is being used to extract the body of the request
-app.use(bodyParser.json())
+app.use(bodyParser.json({ limit: "100kb" }))
 
-// This middleware has been added to accommodate “byetstream array”
-app.use(bodyParser.raw({ type: "application/*" }))
+// Handles "bytestream array" content types sent as raw application/* bodies
+app.use(bodyParser.raw({ type: "application/*", limit: "100kb" }))
 
-// This middleware is being used to parse cookies!
 app.use(cookieParser())
 
-// All the middlewares defined by the user will run here.
 if (validateMiddleware(addMiddlewares)) addMiddlewares(app)
 
-// The middleware will attempt to compress response bodies for all request that traverse through the middleware
 app.use(compression())
 
-// This endpoint will serve the built assets from the node server. The requests will be made to PUBLIC_STATIC_ASSET_PATH which has been defined in the application config.
-// expressStaticGzip will compress the assets.
+// Serve pre-compressed static assets (brotli preferred) from the build output directory
 if (env === "production") {
     app.use(
         process.env.PUBLIC_STATIC_ASSET_PATH,
@@ -45,7 +40,7 @@ if (env === "production") {
     )
 }
 
-// This middleware handles document requests.
+// Catch-all: every non-asset request is handled by the SSR renderer
 app.use("*", ReactRenderer)
 
 export default app