Assuming you would like to serve a static site, single page application or just a static file (no matter if on your device or on the local network), this package is just the right choice for you.

Once it's time to push your site to production, we recommend using ZEIT Now.

In general, serve also provides a neat interface for listing the directory's contents:

The quickest way to get started is to just run npx serve in your project's directory.

If you prefer, you can also install the package globally using Yarn (you'll need at least Node.js LTS):

yarn global add serve

Once that's done, you can run this command inside your project's directory...

serve

...or specify which folder you want to serve:

serve folder_name

Finally, run this command to see a list of all available options:

serve --help

Now you understand how the package works! 🎉

To customize serve's behavior, create a serve.json file in the public folder and insert any of these properties.

The core of serve is serve-handler, which can be used as middleware in existing HTTP servers:

const handler = require('serve-handler');
const http = require('http');

const server = http.createServer((request, response) => {
  // You pass two more arguments for config and middleware
  // More details here: https://github.com/zeit/serve-handler#options
  return handler(request, response);
})

server.listen(3000, () => {
  console.log('Running at http://localhost:3000');
});

NOTE: You can also replace http.createServer with micro, if you want.

1. Fork this repository to your own GitHub account and then clone it to your local device
2. Uninstall serve if it's already installed: npm uninstall -g serve
3. Link it to the global module directory: npm link

After that, you can use the serve command everywhere. Here's a list of issues that are great for beginners.

This project used to be called "list" and "micro-list". But thanks to TJ Holowaychuk handing us the new name, it's now called "serve" (which is much more definite).

Leo Lamprecht (@notquiteleo) - ZEIT