A simple development web server with automatic live reload.

liver -d <directory> [-p <port>] [-w <watch-dir>] [-n]

liver is a minimal HTTP server that automatically reloads browsers when files change. It serves static files from a directory and watches for modifications, using polling to notify connected clients.

-d, --dir <path>        Directory to serve (required)
-p, --port <number>     Port to listen on (default: 0 = auto)
-w, --watch <path>      Directory to watch for changes (default: same as --dir)
-n, --no-browser        Don't auto-open browser (default: auto-open)
-h, --help              Show help

Serve current directory on random port:

liver -d ./public

Serve on specific port, watch different directory:

liver -d ./dist -p 8080 -w ./src

Serve without opening browser:

liver -d ./public -n

The server uses platform-specific file watching (FSEvents on macOS, inotify on Linux, ReadDirectoryChangesW on Windows). When files change, an atomic timestamp is updated. Browsers poll /reload-time every 100ms and reload when the timestamp changes.

Binary size: ~141KB (ReleaseSmal on macOS ARM64)

Requires Zig 0.15.2 or later.

zig build
zig build --release=small

Cross-compilation:

zig build -Dtarget=x86_64-linux
zig build -Dtarget=x86_64-windows
zig build -Dtarget=aarch64-linux

File watching implementations adapted from Zine by Loris Cro: https://github.com/kristoff-it/zine (commit 2bba322)

The watcher code has been substantially simplified from the original.