🖥 CLI

Commands

Serve

Starts up a development server, which will automatically rebuild your app as you change files and supports hot module replacement for fast development.

parcel index.html

You may also pass a glob or list of globs for multiple entry points.

parcel one.html two.html
# OR
parcel *.html
# OR
parcel ./**/*.html

Build

Builds the assets once, it also enabled minification and sets the NODE_ENV=production environment variable. See Production for more details.

parcel build index.html

NOTE: For special use cases, it's also possible to perform a single build from the development environment, like this:

NODE_ENV=development parcel build <entrypoint> --no-minify

It creates the same bundles as serve, but it doesn't watch or serve assets.

Watch

The watch command is similar to serve, with the main difference being it doesn't start up a server.

parcel watch index.html

Help

Displays all possible cli options

parcel help

Version

Displays Parcel version number

parcel --version

Options

Output directory

Default: "dist"

Available in: serve, watch, build

parcel build entry.js --out-dir build/output
# or
parcel build entry.js -d build/output

root
- build
- - output
- - - entry.js

Set the public URL to serve on

Default: "/"

Available in: serve, watch, build

parcel entry.js --public-url ./dist/

will output:

<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="dist/entry.1a2b3c.css" />
<!-- or -->
<script src="dist/entry.e5f6g7.js"></script>

Target

Default: browser

Available in: serve, watch, build

parcel build entry.js --target node

⚠️ Target node and electron will not bundle package.json's dependencies. This behavior can be overriden using --bundle-node-modules flag (see below).

Possible targets: node, browser, electron

Force node modules bundling

Default: false

Available in: serve, watch, build

parcel build entry.js --target node --bundle-node-modules

By default, package.json's dependencies are not included when using --target node or --target electron. This flag adds them to the bundle.

Cache directory

Default: ".cache"

Available in: serve, watch, build

parcel build entry.js --cache-dir build/cache

Host

Default: localhost

Available in: serve

parcel serve entry.js --host local.myhost.co.uk

Port

Default: 1234

Available in: serve

parcel serve entry.js --port 1111

Change Log level

Default: 3

Available in: serve, watch, build

parcel entry.js --log-level 1

HMR Hostname

Default: location.hostname of current window

Available in: serve, watch

parcel entry.js --hmr-hostname parceljs.org

HMR Port

Default: A random available port

Available in: serve, watch

parcel entry.js --hmr-port 8080

Output filename

Default: Original filename

Available in: serve, watch, build

parcel build entry.js --out-file output.html

This changes the output filename of the entrypoint bundle

Print a detailed report

Default: Minimal report, otherwise depth 10

The optional argument specifies the depth to print.

Available in: build

parcel build entry.js --detailed-report
parcel build entry.js --detailed-report 10

Enable https

Default: https disabled

Available in: serve, watch (listen on HTTPS for HMR connections)

parcel build entry.js --https

⚠️ This flag generates a self-signed certificate, you might have to configure your browser to allow self-signed certificates for localhost.

Set a custom certificate

Default: https disabled

Available in: serve, watch

parcel entry.js --cert certificate.cert --key private.key

Open in browser

Default: open disabled

Available in: serve

parcel entry.js --open

Disable source-maps

Default: source-maps enabled

Available in: serve, watch, build

parcel build entry.js --no-source-maps

Disable content hashing

Default: content-hash enabled

Available in: build

parcel build entry.js --no-content-hash

Disable autoinstall

Default: autoinstall enabled

Available in: serve, watch

parcel entry.js --no-autoinstall

Disable HMR

Default: HMR enabled

Available in: serve, watch

parcel entry.js --no-hmr

Disable minification

Default: minification enabled

Available in: build

parcel build entry.js --no-minify

Disable the filesystem cache

Default: cache enabled

Available in: serve, watch, build

parcel build entry.js --no-cache

Expose modules as UMD

Default: disabled

Available in: serve, watch, build

parcel serve entry.js --global myvariable

Enable experimental scope hoisting/tree shaking support

Default: disabled

Available in: build

parcel build entry.js --experimental-scope-hoisting

For more information, see the Tree Shaking section of Devon Govett's post on Parcel 1.9.

Help us improve the docs

If something is missing or not entirely clear, please file an issue on the website repository or edit this page.