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# Basic Gulp Build for Sass
2019-01-15
Some designers might shy away from build tools when first starting out and I can understand the reasoning - task runners like `gulp` and `grunt` can seem daunting at first. So, I've decided to showcase my go-to setup for `gulp` and explain what the heck it does step-by-step.
Here is the final `gulp.js` file in all it's glory:
~~~js
var gulp = require('gulp');
var shell = require('gulp-shell');
var sass = require('gulp-sass');
/* Build and watch Jekyll (change this task to whatever you need) */
gulp.task('generate', shell.task('jekyll serve'));
/* Compile SCSS files to CSS */
gulp.task('styles', function () {
return gulp.src('_includes/assets/sass/styles.scss')
.pipe(sass({
outputStyle: 'compressed'
}).on('error', sass.logError))
.pipe(gulp.dest('_includes/assets/css/'));
});
/* Compile the assets */
gulp.task('assets', gulp.parallel(
'styles'
));
/* Build */
gulp.task('build', gulp.series(
'assets',
generate'
));
~~~
Trust me, it's not complicated at all.
## Grabbing what we need
For our basic build file we are going to need only three modules: `gulp`, `gulp-shell` and `gulp-sass`.
~~~js
var gulp = require('gulp');
var shell = require('gulp-shell');
var sass = require('gulp-sass');
~~~
#### gulp
This is the streaming build system, without it we can't do anything else.
#### gulp-shell
A gulp command line interface for us to interact with our terminal.
#### gulp-sass
Required for gulp to compile Sass into vanilla CSS.
#### Bonus tasks
<p>You can also toss in <code>gulp-minify</code> to clean-up any JavaScript you might be using, but for this example we're just going to keep things simple and focus on Sass only.</p>
<p class="no-margin">Maybe I'll write about my <code>js</code> build workflow in a future article.</p>
## Generating the build
Our first step is to create the default task that will generate our build. In this example we are making the assumption that we're building a Jekyll website (but you can place any build command here):
~~~sh
gulp.task('generate', shell.task('jekyll serve'));
~~~
Don't worry if this `generate` isn't clear, we come back to that later.
## Processing our pre-processor
We will name this next task `styles` since that's what it outputs - our styling. We start by telling gulp where our main `scss` directory is:
~~~js
/* Change this directory to match yours */
return gulp.src('_includes/assets/sass/styles.scss')
~~~
This next piece tells the plugin to compress our final compiled CSS, log any errors if there are issues with the build and then export it to our destination directory:
~~~js
.pipe(sass({
outputStyle: 'compressed'
}).on('error', sass.logError))
/* Change this to your destination directory */
.pipe(gulp.dest('_includes/assets/css/'));
~~~
## Building our assets
This step isn't 100% needed, but I like to include it for when more assets need to be added (minifying JavaScript, compressing images, etc)
~~~js
/*
Compile the assets
*/
gulp.task('assets', gulp.parallel(
'styles'
));
~~~
## Altogether now!
Now we add a task that runs all other tasks in our gulp file (in this case it will run both `assets` and `generate`)
~~~js
/*
Build
*/
gulp.task('build', gulp.series(
'assets',
'generate'
));
~~~
And that's it - we're done! A very basic `gulp` build for compiling Sass.
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