Concepts

webpack is a module bundler for modern JavaScript applications. It is incredibly configurable, but to get started you only need to understand Four Core Concepts: entry, output, loaders, and plugins.

This document is intended to give a high-level overview of these concepts, while providing links to detailed concept specific use-cases.

Entry

webpack creates a graph of all of your application's dependencies. The starting point of this graph is known as an entry point. The entry point tells webpack where to start and follows the graph of dependencies to know what to bundle. You can think of your application's entry point as the contextual root or the first file to kick off your app.

In webpack we define entry points using the entry property in our webpack configuration object.

The simplest example is seen below:

webpack.config.js

module.exports = {
  entry: './path/to/my/entry/file.js'
};

There are multiple ways to declare your entry property that are specific to your application's needs.

Learn more!

Output

Once you've bundled all of your assets together, you still need to tell webpack where to bundle your application. The webpack output property tells webpack how to treat bundled code.

webpack.config.js

const path = require('path');

module.exports = {
  entry: './path/to/my/entry/file.js',
  output: {
    path: path.resolve(__dirname, 'dist'),
    filename: 'my-first-webpack.bundle.js'
  }
};

In the example above, we use the output.filename and the output.path properties to tell webpack the name of our bundle and where we want it to be emitted to.

You may see the term emitted or emit used throughout our documentation and plugin API. This is a fancy term for "produced or discharged".

The output property has many more configurable features, but let's spend some time understanding some of the most common use cases for the output property.

Learn more!

Loaders

The goal is to have all of the assets in your project to be webpack's concern and not the browser's. (This doesn't mean that they all have to be bundled together). webpack treats every file (.css, .html, .scss, .jpg, etc.) as a module. However, webpack only understands JavaScript.

Loaders in webpack transform these files into modules as they are added to your dependency graph.

At a high level, they have two purposes in your webpack config.

1. Identify what files should be transformed by a certain loader. (test property)
2. Transform that file so that it can be added to your dependency graph (and eventually your bundle). (use property)

webpack.config.js

const path = require('path');

const config = {
  entry: './path/to/my/entry/file.js',
  output: {
    path: path.resolve(__dirname, 'dist'),
    filename: 'my-first-webpack.bundle.js'
  },
  module: {
    rules: [
      {test: /\.(js|jsx)$/, use: 'babel-loader'}
    ]
  }
};

module.exports = config;

The configuration above has defined a rules property for a single module with two required properties: test and use. This tells webpack's compiler the following:

"Hey webpack compiler, when you come across a path that resolves to a '.js' or '.jsx' file inside of a require()/import statement, use the babel-loader to transform it before you add it to the bundle".

It is important to remember when defining rules in your webpack config, you are defining them under module.rules and not rules. However webpack will yell at you when doing this incorrectly.

There are more specific properties to define on loaders that we haven't yet covered.

Learn more!

Plugins

Since Loaders only execute transforms on a per-file basis, plugins are most commonly used (but not limited to) performing actions and custom functionality on "compilations" or "chunks" of your bundled modules (and so much more). The webpack Plugin system is extremely powerful and customizable.

In order to use a plugin, you just need to require() it and add it to the plugins array. Most plugins are customizable via options. Since you can use a plugin multiple times in a config for different purposes, you need to create an instance of it by calling it with new.

webpack.config.js

const HtmlWebpackPlugin = require('html-webpack-plugin'); //installed via npm
const webpack = require('webpack'); //to access built-in plugins
const path = require('path');

const config = {
  entry: './path/to/my/entry/file.js',
  output: {
    path: path.resolve(__dirname, 'dist'),
    filename: 'my-first-webpack.bundle.js'
  },
  module: {
    rules: [
      {test: /\.(js|jsx)$/, use: 'babel-loader'}
    ]
  },
  plugins: [
    new webpack.optimize.UglifyJsPlugin(),
    new HtmlWebpackPlugin({template: './src/index.html'})
  ]
};

module.exports = config;

There are many plugins that webpack provides out of the box! Check out our list of plugins for more information.

Using plugins in your webpack config is straight-forward, however there are many use-cases that are worth discussing further.

Learn more!