tailwindcss/crates/node/src
Robin Malfait 39656f7d9a
Add --poll option to @tailwindcss/cli (#20297)
This PR re-adds the `--poll` option to the `@tailwindcss/cli` that we
had in Tailwind CSS v3, but didn't in Tailwind CSS v4.

In Tailwind CSS v4, we started using `@parcel/watcher` instead of
chokidar for our watcher in the CLI. However, this currently doesn't
support a `--poll` option.

This PR implements our own `--poll` option such that you can use it in
environments where fs events don't work properly (e.g. Docker).

Polling can be enabled by using `--watch --poll`, in this case we will
poll every `250ms` (I'm open for a different default value). You can
also pick your own interval by using `--watch --poll 500` which is
defined in milliseconds.

The `--poll` option will be less efficient than a normal `--watch`. But
if you are in a situation where you can't use `--watch` on its own then
this is a good fallback.

One thing you can do today is run the build command manually. If you do
have some tooling that _does_ work on your machine (such as
[`watchexec`](https://github.com/watchexec/watchexec)) then you can
automatically perform a full build. The biggest downside of this
approach is that you are doing a full build every time, instead of an
incremental build.

With this PR, we try to fix that by still allowing incremental builds.
This should result in the same behavior as the normal `--watch`
function:

1. First run, will trigger a full build
1. When any of the source files changes:
- If all classes were already known, then it will be a no-op, but you
will see a log in the terminal about it.
- If a new class is detected, then the CSS will be updated, but it will
be much more efficient than a full rebuild
1. When the input CSS file changes, or any of its dependencies, then a
full rebuild will be triggered (such that your new `@utility` are
available, and `@theme` values are updated).

The implementation is a little bit more complex just because I didn't
want to spam the terminal output even if we are polling every `250ms`.

In the Oxide scanner we do track the modified times of each file. Every
`250ms` we traverse the file system and skip the files that we know
didn't change (since the mtime is the same). If the file was touched,
then we will parse it again to extract possible Tailwind CSS classes. We
will also track which files were scanned such that we can know whether
we have to trigger a full-rebuild or not (in case the input.css file or
any of its dependencies was changed).

Fixes: #18109
Fixes: #18540
Fixes: #15750

## Test plan

1. Existing tests pass
2. An integration test has been added for the `--poll` option
3. Tested it on the tailwindcss.com codebase:

<img width="679" height="320" alt="image"
src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/af858da5-3e07-448d-86bd-8eacdf3bf8d1"
/>

Annotated:
```
≈ tailwindcss v4.3.2

Done in 105ms                    Initial build
Done in 3ms                      Saved a file that resulted in a no-op
Done in 2ms                      Saved a file that resulted in a no-op
Done in 3ms                      Saved a file that resulted in a no-op
Done in 53ms                     Saved a file with a new class
Done in 2ms                      Saved a file that resulted in a no-op
Done in 2ms                      Saved a file that resulted in a no-op
Done in 3ms                      Saved a file that resulted in a no-op
Done in 88ms                     Saved a the input.css file
Done in 3ms                      Saved a file that resulted in a no-op
Polling for changes…
```
We check the file system every `250ms` by default, but we won't log to
prevent spamming the terminal.
2026-07-01 21:25:26 +02:00
..
lib.rs Add --poll option to @tailwindcss/cli (#20297) 2026-07-01 21:25:26 +02:00
utf16.rs Auto source detection improvements (#14820) 2024-10-29 20:33:34 +00:00