Quick and dirty server

Published on Thursday, 11 March 2021.
At 155 words, this article should take about 1 minute to read.
This article is more than 2 years old.

I often find myself working on proof of concepts that consist of (at most) an index.html, style.css, and index.js.

It always seems overkill to have some kind of "local server" plugin imported into the project - especially because I use a MacBook Pro and it has Python installed by default.

A neat little trick for serving a static site without additional dependencies is this…

1. Navigate to the folder you want to serve
2. python -m SimpleHTTPServer
3. Open http://localhost:8000

What if PORT 8000 is in use?

Pass a different port number like this: python -m SimpleHTTPServer %%PORT_NUMBER%%

If you want it to be even simpler - stick this somewhere in your bash config!

srv() {
  python -m SimpleHTTPServer
}

It doesn't come with any of the fancy stuff that other "local server" plugins might come with like hot reloading or compiling Scss but, if all you want is a small static site launching, why reach for another dependency?

Fin

Cover image courtesy of David Clode.

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