Changes to style files are not picked up by `assets watch`

[avivace]

Package version (if known): 1.0.11

Describe the bug

While invenio-cli assets watch is up, changes in your instance's assets/ folder are not picked up (no rebuild is triggered).

Steps to Reproduce

Cookie cutter an instance of InvenioRDM and follow the official instructions to bring it up locally (install, setup, run) while on another shell bring up invenio-cli assets watch.

Make any changes to the files shipped by default under assets/less/site/globals (e.g. to site.variables, as suggested by the official instructions). A rebuild is required to see any changes (i.e. invenio-cli assets build) which may not be desirable, considering the time it takes.

Expected behavior

Changes to the mentioned files are expected to trigger a (hot) reload of the webpack build.

Workaround

As suggested by @kpsherva , this works:

ln -s <YOUR_LOCAL_INVENIORDM_PATH>/assets/less/cds-rdm ~/.virtualenvs/<VIRTUALENV>/var/instance/assets/less

But it must be done every time a full rebuild happens (i.e. on invenio-cli assets build). The VIRTUALENV path can be seen for example when running pipenv shell and checking where it's activated from.

[fenekku]

For me with

• invenio-app-rdm v11.0
• node 14.18.2
• npm 6.14.15

The problem occurs with files symlinked (not sure the difference between folder and file symlink would make):

.venv/var/instance/assets/less/site/globals/site.variables -> /home/me/path/to/instance/assets/less/site/globals/site.variables

And with

• node 16.19.1
• npm 8.19.3

the problem persists as well.

[fenekku]

Oh and invenio-cli assets watch doesn't deal with the icon font correctly for me in v11:

invenio-cli assets build does

In v9 this used to all be good.

[avivace]

Oh and invenio-cli assets watch doesn't deal with the icon font correctly for me in v11:

invenio-cli assets build does

In v9 this used to all be good.

I don't know if those two are related, but this happens to me too sometimes and I remember the same issue being reported on the Discord server by @Pineirin

[monotasker]

Is there any sense of where a fix for this falls on the list of priorities? Is it something that will likely be fixed soon or should I be looking at alternative approaches?