Grunt livereload with node.js application

Question

I have written an application in Node.js (with Express & socket.io) and I would like to use Grunt to compile my client-side stuff with livereload while developing and being connected to Node.js application. How can I do this? (Preferably without running Node.js app in another port and client in another port, because of pathing and cross-domain issues)

I installed also Yeoman and it's using out of the box grunt-contrib-livereload package, but from what I understood it's using Node.js Connect server for serving client-side files, thus being separated from my Node.js application..

Example from Gruntfile.js generated by Yeoman:

var lrSnippet = require('grunt-contrib-livereload/lib/utils').livereloadSnippet;
var mountFolder = function (connect, dir) {
    return connect.static(require('path').resolve(dir));
};

// ... cut some parts
grunt.initConfig({
    watch: {
        livereload: {
            files: [
                '<%= yeoman.app %>/*/*.html',
                '{.tmp,<%= yeoman.app %>}/styles/*.css',
                '{.tmp,<%= yeoman.app %>}/scripts/*.js',
                '<%= yeoman.app %>/images/*.{png,jpg,jpeg}'
            ],
            tasks: ['livereload']
        }
        // ..cut some parts
    },
    connect: {
        livereload: {
            options: {
                port: 9000,
                middleware: function (connect) {
                    return [
                        lrSnippet,
                        mountFolder(connect, '.tmp'),
                        mountFolder(connect, 'app')
                    ];
                }
            }
        }
    }
    // ..cut some parts
});

grunt.registerTask('server', [
    'clean:server',
    'coffee:dist',
    'compass:server',
    'livereload-start',
    'connect:livereload',
    'open',
    'watch'
]);

Answer 1

Not sure if you have solved this question yet, but I have done this by adding my express application as a middleware attached to the 'connect.livereload.options.middleware' option.

However, automatic reloading of server side code doesn't work. For that you could implement a reload friendly server using a simple 'node ./server.js', create a connect middleware that acts as a transparent proxy to your development server, and invoke that within your Gruntfile.js before your standard connect/livereload server starts.

connect: {
    options: {
        port: 9000,
        // change this to '0.0.0.0' to access the server from outside
        hostname: 'localhost'
    },
    livereload: {
        options: {
            middleware: function (connect) {
                return [
                    lrSnippet,
                    mountFolder(connect, '.tmp'),
                    mountFolder(connect, 'app'),
                    require('./server') // your server packaged as a nodejs module
                ];
            }
        }
    }
}

server.js:

var app = express();

...
// Export your server object.
module.exports = app;