Awesome

Tags Plugin for the HTML Webpack Plugin

Enhances html-webpack-plugin by letting you specify script or link tags to inject.

Prior Version

html-webpack-tags-plugin requires Node >= 10 and webpack & html-webpack-plugin versions >= 5.
For older versions of webpack and node, please use version 2.x of this plugin.
This plugin used to be called html-webpack-include-assets-plugin.
For versions of Node older than 8.6, please install html-webpack-include-assets-plugin version 1.x.

Motivation

When using a plugin such as copy-webpack-plugin you may have assets output to your build directory that are not detected/output by the html-webpack-plugin.

This plugin lets you manually resolve such issues, and also lets you inject the webpack publicPath or compilation hash into your tag paths if you so choose.

Installation

You must be running webpack on node 8.x or higher

Install the plugin with npm:

$ npm install --save-dev html-webpack-tags-plugin

Deployment

html-webpack-deploy-plugin is a plugin that enhances this plugin with capabilities such as:

copying your local files and injecting them as html tags with easy to use syntax
copying package files from your local node_modules and having them versioned automatically as they are injected as html tags
easy configuration to stop webpack from processing certain node_modules packages so you can handle shipping certain package bundles yourself
easy to use CDN settings so you can inject package tags that serve from a CDN for optimal performance

Basic Usage

Require the plugin in your webpack config:

var HtmlWebpackTagsPlugin = require('html-webpack-tags-plugin');

Add the plugin to your webpack config:

output: {
  publicPath: '/abc/'
},
plugins: [
  new HtmlWebpackPlugin(),
  new HtmlWebpackTagsPlugin({ tags: ['a.js', 'b.css'], append: true })
]

Which will generate html like this:

<head>
  <!-- other head content -->
  <link rel="stylesheet" href="/abc/b.css"/>
</head>
<body>
  <!-- other body content -->
  <script type="text/javascript" src="/abc/a.js"></script>
</body>

Configuration

Default Options

This plugin will run and do nothing if no options are provided.

The default options for this plugin are shown below:

const url = require('url');

const DEFAULT_OPTIONS = {
  append: true,
  prependExternals: true,
  jsExtensions: ['.js'],
  cssExtensions: ['.css'],
  useHash: false,
  addHash: (assetPath, hash) => assetPath + '?' + hash,
  hash: undefined,
  usePublicPath: true,
  addPublicPath: (assetPath, publicPath) => url.resolve(publicPath, assetPath),
  publicPath: undefined,
  tags: [],
  links: [],
  scripts: [],
  metas: undefined
};

Options

All options for this plugin are validated as soon as the plugin is instantiated.

The available options are:

Name	Type	Default	Description
`append`	`{Boolean}`	`true`	Whether to prepend or append the injected tags relative to any existing or webpack bundle tags (should be set to false when using any `script` tag `external`)
`prependExternals`	`{Boolean}`	`true`	Whether to default `append` to false for any `<script>` `tag` that has an `external` option specified
`files`	`{Array<String>}`	`[]`	If specified this plugin will only inject tags into the html-webpack-plugin instances that are injecting into these files (uses minimatch)
`jsExtensions`	`{String\|Array<String>}`	`['.js']`	The file extensions to use when determining if a `tag` in the `tags` option is a `script`
`cssExtensions`	`{String\|Array<String>}`	`['.css']`	The file extensions to use when determining if a `tag` in the `tags` option is a `link`
`useHash`	`{Boolean}`	`false`	Whether to inject the webpack `compilation.hash` into the tag paths
`addHash`	`{Function(assetPath:String, hash:String):String}`	`see above`	The function to call when injecting the `hash` into the tag paths
`hash`	`{Boolean\|String\|Function}`	`undefined`	Shortcut to specifying `useHash` and `addHash`
`usePublicPath`	`{Boolean}`	`true`	Whether to inject the (webpack) `publicPath` into the tag paths
`addPublicPath`	`{Function(assetPath:String, publicPath:String):String}`	`see above`	Whether to inject the `publicPath` into the tag paths
`publicPath`	`{Boolean\|String\|Function}`	`undefined`	Shortcut to specifying `usePublicPath` and `addPublicPath`
`links`	`{String\|Object\|Array<String\|Object>}`	`[]`	The tags to inject as `<link>` html tags
`scripts`	`{String\|Object\|Array<String\|Object>}`	`[]`	The tags to inject as `<script>` html tags
`tags`	`{String\|Object\|Array<String\|Object>}`	`[]`	The tags to inject as `<link>` or `<script>` html tags depending on the tag `type`
`metas`	`{Object\|Array<Object>}`	`undefined`	The tags to inject as `<meta>` html tags

The append option controls whether tags are injected before or after webpack or template tags.

If multiple plugins are used with append set to false then the tags will be injected in reverse order.

This option has no effect on meta tags.

This sample index.html template:

<html>
  <head><link href="template-link"></head>
  <body><script src="template-script"></script></body>
</html>

And this sample webpack config:

{
  entry: {
    'app': 'app.js',
    'style': 'style.css' // also generates style.js
  },
  plugins: [
    new HtmlWebpackTagsPlugin({
      append: false, links: 'plugin-a-link', scripts: 'plugin-a-script'
    }),
    new HtmlWebpackTagsPlugin({
      append: false, links: 'plugin-b-link', scripts: 'plugin-b-script'
    }),
    new HtmlWebpackTagsPlugin({
      append: true, links: 'plugin-c-link', scripts: 'plugin-c-script'
    }),
    new HtmlWebpackTagsPlugin({
      append: true, links: 'plugin-d-link', scripts: 'plugin-d-script'
    })
  ]
}

Will generate approximately this html:

<head>
  <link href="plugin-b-link">
  <link href="plugin-a-link">
  <link href="template-link">
  <link href="style.css">
  <link href="plugin-c-link">
  <link href="plugin-d-link">
</head>
<body>
  <script src="plugin-b-script"></script>
  <script src="plugin-a-script"></script>
  <script src="template-script"></script>
  <script src="app.js"></script>
  <script src="style.js"></script>
  <script src="plugin-c-link"></script>
  <script src="plugin-d-link"></script>
</body>

The hash option is a shortcut that overrides the useHash and addHash options:

const shortcutFunction = {
  hash: (path, hash) => path + '?' + hash
}
const isTheSameAsFunction = {
  useHash: true,
  addHash: (path, hash) => path + '?' + hash
}

const shortcutDisabled = {
  hash: false
}
const isTheSameAsDisabled = {
  useHash: false,
}

The publicPath option is a shortcut that overrides the usePublicPath and addPublicPath options:

const shortcutFunction = {
  publicPath: (path, publicPath) => publicPath + path
}
const isTheSameAsFunction = {
  usePublicPath: true,
  addPublicPath: (path, publicPath) => publicPath + path
}

const shortcutDisabled = {
  publicPath: false
}
const isTheSameAsDisabled = {
  usePublicPath: false,
}

const shortcutString = {
  publicPath: 'myValue'
}
const isTheSameAsString = {
  usePublicPath: true,
  addPublicPath: (path) => 'myValue' + path
}

When the tags option is used the type of the specified tag(s) is inferred either from the file extension or an optional type option that may be one of: 'js' \| 'css'|

The inferred type is used to split the tags option into tagLinks and tagScripts that are injected before any specified links or scripts options.

The following are functionally equivalent:

new HtmlWebpackTagsPlugin({
  tags: [
    'style-1.css',
    { path: 'script-2.js' },
    { path: 'script-3-not-js.css', type: 'js' },
    'style-4.css'
  ]
});

new HtmlWebpackTagsPlugin({
  links: [
    'style-1.css',
    'style-4.css'
  ],
  scripts: [
    { path: 'script-2.js' },
    { path: 'script-3-not-js.css' }
  ]
});

The value of the tags, links or scripts options can be specified in several ways:

as a String:

new HtmlWebpackTagsPlugin({ tags: 'style.css' });

as an Object:

new HtmlWebpackTagsPlugin({ links: { path: 'style.css' } });

as an Array of Strings or Objects:

new HtmlWebpackTagsPlugin({
  scripts: [
    'aScript.js',
    {
      path: 'bScript.js'
    },
    'cScript.js'
  ]
});

When tags are specified as Objects, the following tag object options are available:

Name	Type	Default	Description
`path`	`{String}`	*`required`**	The tag file path (used for `<link href />` or `<script src />` or `<meta content />`) *`( not required for meta tags)`**
`append`	`{Boolean}`	`undefined`	This can be used to override the plugin level `append` option at a tag level
`type`	`{'js'\|'css'}`	`undefined`	For `tags` assets this may be used to specify whether the tag is a `link` or a `script`
`glob`, `globPath`	`{String, String}`	`undefined`	Together these two options specify a glob to run, inserting a tag with path for each match result
`globFlatten`	`{Boolean}`	`false`	When used with `glob` and `globPath` this flag controls whether glob-matched files are output with with full path (`false`) or just the filename (`true`)
`attributes`	`{Object}`	`undefined`	The attributes to be injected into the html tags. Some attributes are filtered out by `html-webpack-plugin`. (Recommended: set `html-webpack-plugin` option: `{ inject: true }`)
`sourcePath`	`{String}`	`undefined`	Specify a source path to be added as an entry to `html-webpack-plugin`. Useful to trigger webpack recompilation after the asset has changed
`hash`	`{Boolean\|String\|Function}`	`undefined`	Whether & how to inject the the webpack `compilation.hash` into the tag's path
`publicPath`	`{Boolean\|String\|Function}`	`undefined`	Whether & how to inject the (webpack) `publicPath` into the tag's path
`external`	`{Object({ packageName: String, variableName: String})}`	`undefined`	When specified for script tags causes `{ packageName: variableName }` to be added to the webpack config's externals

The tag object hash option may be used to override the main hash option:

const pluginOptions = {
  hash: true,
  tags: [
    {
      path: 'will-have-hash-injected'
    },
    {
      path: 'will-NOT-have-hash-injected',
      hash: false
    },
    {
      path: 'will-be-sandwhiched-by-hash',
      hash: (path, hash) => hash + path + hash
    }
  ]
}
// or
const pluginOptionsDisabled = {
  hash: false,
  tags: [
    {
      path: 'will-NOT-have-hash-injected'
    },
    {
      path: 'will-have-hash-injected',
      hash: true
    },
  ]
}

The tag object publicPath option may be used to override the main publicPath option:

const pluginOptions = {
  publicPath: true,
  tags: [
    {
      path: 'will-have-public-path-injected'
    },
    {
      path: 'will-NOT-have-public-path-injected',
      publicPath: false
    },
    {
      path: 'will-be-sandwhiched-by-public-path',
      publicPath: (path, publicPath) => publicPath + path + publicPath
    }
  ]
}
// or
const pluginOptionsDisabled = {
  publicPath: false,
  tags: [
    {
      path: 'will-NOT-have-public-path-injected'
    },
    {
      path: 'will-have-public-path-injected',
      publicPath: true
    },
  ]
}

Examples

Using HtmlWebpackTagsPlugin and CopyWebpackPlugin to inject copied assets from a node_modules package:

plugins: [
  new CopyWebpackPlugin([
    { from: 'node_modules/bootstrap/dist/css', to: 'css/'},
    { from: 'node_modules/bootstrap/dist/fonts', to: 'fonts/'}
  ]),
  new HtmlWebpackPlugin(),
  new HtmlWebpackTagsPlugin({
    links: ['css/bootstrap.min.css', 'css/bootstrap-theme.min.css']
  })
]

Using the append option set to true and false at the same time:

Note on Plugin Ordering

When append is set to false and there are multiple instances of this plugins, the second plugin's tags will be inserted before the first plugin's tags.

plugins: [
  new CopyWebpackPlugin([
    { from: 'node_modules/bootstrap/dist/css', to: 'css/'},
    { from: 'node_modules/bootstrap/dist/fonts', to: 'fonts/'}
  ]),
  new HtmlWebpackPlugin(),
  new HtmlWebpackTagsPlugin({
    links: ['css/bootstrap.min.css', 'css/bootstrap-theme.min.css'],
    append: false
  }),
  new HtmlWebpackTagsPlugin({
    links: ['css/custom.css'],
    append: true
  })
]

Using custom jsExtensions:

plugins: [
  new HtmlWebpackPlugin(),
  new HtmlWebpackTagsPlugin({
    tags: ['dist/output.js', 'lib/content.jsx'],
    jsExtensions: ['.js', '.jsx']
  })
]

Using custom publicPath:

plugins: [
  new CopyWebpackPlugin([
    { from: 'node_modules/bootstrap/dist/css', to: 'css/'},
    { from: 'node_modules/bootstrap/dist/fonts', to: 'fonts/'}
  ]),
  new HtmlWebpackPlugin(),
  new HtmlWebpackTagsPlugin({
    tags: ['css/bootstrap.min.css', 'css/bootstrap-theme.min.css'],
    publicPath: 'myPublicPath/'
  })
]

This will override webpack's publicPath setting for the purposes of path prefixing.

Or to inject tag objects without prepending the publicPath:

plugins: [
  new HtmlWebpackPlugin(),
  new HtmlWebpackTagsPlugin({
    tags: ['css/no-public-path.min.css', 'http://some.domain.com.js'],
    publicPath: false
  })
]

Manually specifying a tag tag object type:

plugins: [
  new CopyWebpackPlugin([
    { from: 'node_modules/bootstrap/dist/js', to: 'js/'},
    { from: 'node_modules/bootstrap/dist/css', to: 'css/'},
    { from: 'node_modules/bootstrap/dist/fonts', to: 'fonts/'}
  ]),
  new HtmlWebpackPlugin(),
  new HtmlWebpackTagsPlugin({
    tags: [
      '/js/bootstrap.min.js',
      '/css/bootstrap.min.css',
      '/css/bootstrap-theme.min.css',
      {
        path: 'https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Material+Icons',
        type: 'css'
      }
    ]
  })
]

Adding custom attributes to tag objects:

The bootstrap-theme <link> tag will be given an id="bootstrapTheme" attribute.

plugins: [
  new CopyWebpackPlugin([
    { from: 'node_modules/bootstrap/dist/css', to: 'css/'},
    { from: 'node_modules/bootstrap/dist/fonts', to: 'fonts/'}
  ]),
  new HtmlWebpackPlugin(),
  new HtmlWebpackTagsPlugin({
    tags: [
      '/css/bootstrap.min.css',
      { path: '/css/bootstrap-theme.min.css', attributes: { id: 'bootstrapTheme' } }
    ],
    append: false,
    publicPath: ''
  })
]

Using the hash option to inject the webpack compilation hash:

When the hash option is set to true, tag paths will be injected with a hash value.

The addHash option can be used to control how the hash is injected.

  plugins: [
    new CopyWebpackPlugin([
      { from: 'node_modules/bootstrap/dist/css', to: 'css/'},
      { from: 'node_modules/bootstrap/dist/fonts', to: 'fonts/'}
    ]),
    new HtmlWebpackPlugin(),
    new HtmlWebpackTagsPlugin({
      tags: ['css/bootstrap.min.css', 'css/bootstrap-theme.min.css'],
      append: false,
      hash: true
    })
  ]

Using the hash option to customize the injection of the webpack compilation hash:

When the hash option is set to a function, tag paths will be replaced with the result of executing that function.

plugins: [
  new CopyWebpackPlugin([
    { from: 'somepath/somejsfile.js', to: 'js/somejsfile.[hash].js' },
    { from: 'somepath/somecssfile.css', to: 'css/somecssfile.[hash].css' }
  ]),
  new HtmlWebpackPlugin(),
  new HtmlWebpackTagsPlugin({
    tags: [{ path: 'js', glob: '*.js', globPath: 'somepath' }],
    tags: [{ path: 'css', glob: '*.css', globPath: 'somepath' }],
    append: false,
    hash: function(assetName, hash) {
      assetName = assetName.replace(/\.js$/, '.' + hash + '.js');
      assetName = assetName.replace(/\.css$/, '.' + hash + '.css');
      return assetName;
    }
  })
]

Specifying specific html-webpack-plugin instances to inject to with the files option:

plugins: [
  new CopyWebpackPlugin([
    { from: 'node_modules/bootstrap/dist/css', to: 'css/'},
    { from: 'node_modules/bootstrap/dist/fonts', to: 'fonts/'}
  ]),
  new HtmlWebpackPlugin({
    filename: 'a/index.html'
  }),
  new HtmlWebpackPlugin({
    filename: 'b/index.html'
  }),
  new HtmlWebpackTagsPlugin({
    files: ['a/**/*.html'],
    tags: ['css/a.css'],
    append: true
  }),
  new HtmlWebpackTagsPlugin({
    files: ['b/**/*.html'],
    tags: ['css/b.css'],
    append: true
  })
]

Specifying tag object path searches usings a glob:

Note that since copy-webpack-plugin does not actually copy the files to webpack's output directory until after html-webpack-plugin has completed, it is necessary to use the globPath to retrieve filename matches relative to the original location of any such files.

plugins: [
  new CopyWebpackPlugin([
    { from: 'node_modules/bootstrap/dist/css', to: 'css/'},
    { from: 'node_modules/bootstrap/dist/fonts', to: 'fonts/'}
  ]),
  new HtmlWebpackPlugin(),
  new HtmlWebpackTagsPlugin({
    tags: [{ path: 'css', glob: '*.css', globPath: 'node_modules/bootstrap/dist/css/' }],
    append: true
  })
]

Using the links option to inject link tags:

output: {
  publicPath: '/my-public-path/'
},
plugins: [
  new CopyWebpackPlugin([
    { from: 'node_modules/bootstrap/dist/css', to: 'css/'},
    { from: 'node_modules/bootstrap/dist/fonts', to: 'fonts/'}
  ]),
  new HtmlWebpackPlugin(),
  new HtmlWebpackTagsPlugin({
    tags: [],
    links: [
      {
        path: 'asset/path',
        attributes: {
          rel: 'icon'
        }
      },
      {
        path: '/absolute/asset/path',
        publicPath: false,
        attributes: {
          rel: 'manifest'
        }
      }
    ]
  })
]

Will append the following <link> elements into the index template html

<head>
  <!-- previous header content -->
  <link rel="icon" href="/my-public-path/asset/path">
  <link rel="manifest" href="/absolute/asset/path">
</head>

Note that the second link's href was not prefixed with the webpack publicPath because the second link asset's publicPath was set to false.

Using the scripts option to inject script tags:

output: {
  publicPath: '/my-public-path/'
},
plugins: [
  new CopyWebpackPlugin([
    { from: 'node_modules/bootstrap/dist/js', to: 'js/'}
  ]),
  new HtmlWebpackPlugin(),
  new HtmlWebpackTagsPlugin({
    tags: [],
    scripts: [
      {
        path: 'asset/path',
        attributes: {
          type: 'text/javascript'
        }
      }
    ]
  })
]

Will append the following <script> element into the index template html

<body>
  <!-- previous body content -->
  <script src="/my-public-path/asset/path" type="text/javascript"></script>
</body>

Specifying scripts with external options:

output: {
  publicPath: '/my-public-path/'
},
plugins: [
  new CopyWebpackPlugin([
    { from: 'node_modules/bootstrap/dist/js', to: 'js/'}
  ]),
  new HtmlWebpackPlugin(),
  new HtmlWebpackTagsPlugin({
    tags: [],
    scripts: [
      {
        path: 'asset/path',
        external: {
          packageName: 'react',
          variableName: 'React'
        },
        attributes: {
          type: 'text/javascript'
        }
      }
    ]
  })
]

Will add the following properties to the webpack.compilation.options.externals:

const compilationConfig = {
  ...otherProperties,
  externals: {
    "react": "React"
  }
};

This can be useful to control which packages webpack is bundling versus ones you can serve from a CDN.

Note that script tags with external specified need to be placed before the webpack bundle tags.

This means that you should always set append to false when using the script external option.

The prependExternals option was added in 2.0.10 to handle this case automatically.

Using the metas option to inject meta tags:

output: {
  publicPath: '/my-public-path/'
},
plugins: [
  new CopyWebpackPlugin([
    { from: 'node_modules/bootstrap/dist/js', to: 'js/'}
  ]),
  new HtmlWebpackPlugin(),
  new HtmlWebpackTagsPlugin({
    metas: [
      {
        path: 'asset/path',
        attributes: {
          name: 'the-meta-name'
        }
      }
    ]
  })
]

Will inject the following <meta> element into the index template html

<head>
  <!-- previous header content -->
  <meta content="/my-public-path/asset/path" name="the-meta-name">
</head>

Note that the append settings has no effect on how the <meta> elements are injected.

Caveats

Plugin Ordering

Some users have encountered issues with plugin ordering.

It is advisable to always place any HtmlWebpackPlugin plugins before any HtmlWebpackTagsPlugin plugins in your webpack config.
When append is false tags are injected before any other tags. This means that if you have two instances of this plugin both with append set to false, then the second plugin's tags will be injected before the first plugin's tags.

Webpack `externals`

Setting the external option for a script tag object requires caution to ensure that the scripts are in the correct order.

It is advisable to always set append to false so that external <script> tags are always inserted before the webpack bundle <script> tags.
The order that you use when you specify a list of external links matters. For example, <script src="react.js"/> should come before <script src="react-router.s"/> if react-router has a peer dependency on react.

HtmlWebpackPlugin `inject` option

Changing HtmlWebpackPlugin inject option from its default value of true may cause issues.

This plugin recommends that the HtmlWebpackPlugin inject option to be true for attribute injection to work.

Disabling injection means that you are agreeing to template how the tags should be generated in your templates/index.html file like this:

<html>
  <head>
    <!-- other head content -->
    <% for (var cssIndex = 0; cssIndex < htmlWebpackPlugin.files.css.length; cssIndex++) { %>
    <link rel="stylesheet" href="<%= htmlWebpackPlugin.files.css[cssIndex] %>">
    <% } %>
  </head>
  <body>
    <!-- other body content -->
    <% for (var jsIndex = 0; jsIndex < htmlWebpackPlugin.files.js.length; jsIndex++) { %>
    <script src="<%= htmlWebpackPlugin.files.js[jsIndex] %>"></script>
    <% } %>
  </body>
</html>

The default templating engine for html-webpack-plugin seems to be based on lodash.

With the above template we might use the following webpack config which disables inject:

output: {
  publicPath: '/the-public-path/'
},
plugins: [
  new HtmlWebpackPlugin({ <b>inject: false</b> }),
  new HtmlWebpackTagsPlugin({
    tags: [{ path: 'css/bootstrap-theme.min.css', attributes: { id: 'bootstrapTheme' } }],
    links: [{ href: 'the-ref', attributes: { rel: 'icon' } }],
    append: true
  })
]

The problem is that the template syntax does not seem to allow injection of more than one attribute value, namely the path (href or src)

This means it will generate an index.html that is missing all of the script attributes like this:

<head>
  <link href="/the-public-path/css/bootstrap-theme.min.css">
  <link href="/the-public-path/the-ref">
</head>

If the templating engine supports injection of entire tags instead of just the href/src attribute value then working with inject set to false may be possible.