File Reloads

Figwheel normally reloads any file that has changed. If you want to prevent certain files from being reloaded by figwheel, you can add meta-data to the namespace declaration like so:

(ns ^:figwheel-no-load example.core)

Figwheel will not load or reload files that haven't been required by your application. If you want to force a file to be loaded when it changes add the follwoing meta-data the namespace declaration of the file:

(ns ^:figwheel-load example.core)

It can be very helpful to have a file reload every time a file changes in your ClojureScript source tree. This can facilitate reloading your main app and running tests on change.

To force a file to reload on every change:

(ns ^:figwheel-always example.test-runner)

Using the ClojureScript REPL

When you run lein figwheel a REPL will be launched into your application.

You will need to open your application in a browser in order for the REPL to connect and show its prompt.

This REPL is a little different than other REPLs in that it has live compile information from the build process. This effectively means that you will not have to call (require or (load-namesapce unless it is a namespace that isn't in your loaded application's required dependencies. In many cases you can just (in-ns 'my.namespace) and everything you need to access will be there already.

The REPL doesn't currently have built-in readline support. To have a better experience please install rlwrap. You can do this on OSX using brew: brew install rlwrap.

When rlwrap is installed you can now execute lein figwheel as so:

$ rlwrap lein figwheel

This will give you a much nicer REPL experience with history and line editing.