This document discusses using Bower and Grunt together to manage front-end dependencies and files in a workflow. Bower is used to declare and install dependencies, while Grunt plugins like grunt-bowercopy and grunt-contrib-clean are used to copy dependencies to consistent locations and clean files. Setting up this workflow with Bower, grunt-bowercopy, grunt-contrib-clean, and Git can help organize a project's dependencies, facilitate tracking without committing all files, and reduce build times.

1. Bower & Grunt
A practical workflow
riccardo coppola about.me/riccardocoppola

2. Workflow step 1:
Bower
Manage front end dependencies

3. What?

4. Web sites are made of lots of things —
frameworks, libraries, assets, utilities, and
rainbows. Bower manages all these things for
you.

5. Why?

6. Declutter your lib/vendor folder
Too often we end up with 5 different versions of
the same library (jQuery is an always-working
example...).
Which one are we actually using?

7. Dependency management
No more downloads from ten different
websites to get your dependencies.
No more version mismatch problems.

8. Automate dependency management
$ bower install
That’s it

9. vs
● Flexible: install from Bower
registry, GitHub, zip, fs location
● created solely for the front-end
and optimized with that in mind
● flat dependency tree (just one
lib for each type), good for
front-end related stuff
● Most commonly used for
managing Node.js modules
● works for the front-end too when
combined with Browserify
● nested dependency tree (size
heavy), good for server side
modules

10. How?

11. Install Bower
$ npm install -g bower
Bower requires Node, npm and Git.

12. Search for a package
http://bower.io/docs/api/#search
bower search <package>

13. Install a package
# registered package (specific version)
$ bower install jquery#1.2.3
# GitHub shorthand
$ bower install desandro/masonry
http://bower.io/docs/api/#install
# Git endpoint
$ bower install git://github.com/user/package.git
# URL
$ bower install http://example.com/script.jsv

14. Maintaining dependencies
# install package and add it to bower.json
dependencies
$ bower install <package> --save
# install package and add it to bower.json
devDependencies
$ bower install <package> --save-dev

15. bower.json (bower.json : bower = package.json : npm)
{
"name": "my-project",
"version": "1.0.0",
"main": "path/to/main.css",
"ignore": [
".jshintrc",
"**/*.txt"
],
"dependencies": {
"<name>": "<version>",
"<name>": "<folder>",
"<name>": "<package>"
},
"devDependencies": {
"<test-framework-name>": "<version>"
}
}

16. Is it enough?
Bower is just a tool, helps us organize front
end dependencies and keeps track of versions.

17. What we get
➔ CSS and JS in the same folder
➔ docs/ tests/ src/ minified versions and sourcemaps
are all not needed
➔ Bower components folder can grow if not cleaned

18. What we want
➔ separated vendor folders for CSS and JS
➔ single, non minified version of every lib, nothing else
➔ clean vendor folder containing just used libs and only
one version

19. Workflow step 2:
grunt-bowercopy
Scrupulously manage file locations for
bower dependencies.

20. Why
➔ Consistently positions your dependencies where you
want them in your repository.
➔ Conveniently facilitates tracking your dependencies
without committing the entire Bower components folder.
➔ Has the potential to reduce build times dramatically.
➔ By default, runs bower install for you

21. https://www.npmjs.org/package/grunt-bowercopy
$ npm install grunt-bowercopy --save-dev

22. grunt/bowercopy.js
js: {
options: {
destPrefix: 'public/js/vendor
},
files: {
'jquery.js': 'jquery/jquery.js',
'require.js': 'requirejs/require.js'
},
},
sass: {
options: {
destPrefix: 'public/css/vendor
},
files: {
'bootstrap': 'bootstrap-sass-official/bootstrap.js'
},
},
...

23. Workflow step 3:
grunt-contrib-clean
Clear files and folders

24. https://www.npmjs.org/package/grunt-contrib-clean
$ npm install grunt-contrib-clean --save-dev

25. grunt/clean.js
{
vendor: ["public/css/vendor/*", "public/js/vendor/*"]
}

26. Everything together

27. aliases.js
{
vendor: ["clean:vendor", "bowercopy:js", "bowercopy:sass"]
}

28. If you commit your dependencies
1. .gitignore the Bower component folder
2. Add a hook on git pre-commit and run ‘grunt
vendor’ as part of your pre-commit workflow
3. Push your public/css/vendor & public/js/vendor

29. If you DO NOT commit your
dependencies
1. .gitignore the Bower component folder,
public/css/vendor & public/js/vendor
2. Have your CI run ‘npm install’ as first step of the front
end workflow
3. Modify your package.json

30. package.json
{
"name": "myApp",
"version": "0.1.0",
...
"scripts": {
"postinstall": "./node_modules/grunt/bin/grunt vendor"
},
...
}

31. That’s all folks!