aspnet-webpack middleware - conditional/triggered webpack build

[Aleksanderis]

webpack-dev-middleware works surprisingly well with ASP.NET, with just one BUT - it's more suited for front-end development, but not when I need to rebuild just back-end changes. If I do some changes in back-end, and there are no changes in front-end - first page load takes a lot, because it compiles webpack on each start.

I think it would be really great to make some option to rebuild webpack stack conditionally.
With current state of things to remain productive, I need to maintain two configurations - when I'm working on front-end and when I'm working on back-end (not speaking about webpack-watcher approach).

Just some high-level ideas how it could work:

• I'm aware something like that might be achieved with webpack itself (using DLLPlugin, cached vendor chunks, etc). However I just don't want to trigger webpack build.
• Detect if entry files weren't changed (probably also webpack itself related way).
• Trigger webpack middleware logic by navigating to some special route.
• Maybe it's already possible to do somehow?

[dseferlis]

Maybe is not enough for your case, but did you try dotnet-watch?
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/aspnet/core/tutorials/dotnet-watch

[Aleksanderis]

Yes, I know about dotnet-watch (as well as about webpack watch), but yes - it's not always enough.;)
It happens quite often that everything (all watchers) was stopped, there are no real changes, and I want to start it quickly.
Seems it's an usual dilema with inventing ideal build workflow.. It always ends so, that it works for one case, but not for another..:)

Update: tried it with dotnet-watch, but unfortunately it's not useful at all in this case, because it re-executes Startup logic on each rebuild, which means it triggers webpack build all the time as well. I googled about dotnet watch run specifically and found a post about it, which accidentally was from this same repository.:))
This issue is - #545, which is closed, but there a new one created - #555. So it seems mine can be considered as duplicate of it.