Building a Progressive Web App with Vite: A Step-by-Step Guide

Understanding the Basics

Before we dive into building a progressive web app (PWA) with Vite, let’s cover some essential terms and concepts.

What is Vite?

Vite is a lightning-fast build tool created by Evan You, the founder of Vue. It’s designed to be framework-agnostic, allowing you to develop JavaScript or TypeScript applications with ease. Vite serves and updates source code on demand, making it an excellent choice for rapid development.

What is a PWA?

A progressive web application is a web app that uses manifests, service workers, and other web-platform features to provide a native-like experience to users. PWAs offer several benefits, including easy installation, progressive enhancement, network independence, security, and SEO benefits.

What are Service Workers?

A service worker acts as a proxy server between a web app, the browser, and the network. Its primary goal is to create effective offline experiences, update assets on the server, intercept network requests, and take action based on network availability.

What is a Manifest?

A web app manifest is a JSON text file that provides information about the web app, including its name, version, description, icons, and other necessary resources.

Project Setup

Now that we’ve covered the basics, let’s set up our project. We’ll use the VitePWA plugin to add service workers to our Vite app.

Scaffolding the Vite Project

Create a new Vite project using the following command:

npm init vite@latest

Choose the template of your choice and follow the prompts to set up your project.

Installing Dependencies

Install the application dependencies using the following command:

npm install

Starting the Development Server

Start the development server using the following command:

npm run dev

Configuring the Workers Plugin

Installing the VitePWA Plugin

Install the VitePWA plugin as a dev dependency using the following command:

npm install vite-plugin-pwa --save-dev

Registering the Service Workers

Update the vite.config.js or vite.config.ts file to register the service workers. Import VitePWA and add the plugin to the configuration.

// vite.config.js
import { defineConfig } from 'vite';
import { VitePWA } from 'vite-plugin-pwa';

export default defineConfig({
  plugins: [
    VitePWA({
      // Your PWA configuration here
    }),
  ],
});

Building the Vite App

Build the Vite app using the following command:

npm run build

This will generate the web app manifest, inject it at the entry point, and create the service worker.

Testing the PWA

Test the PWA by serving the dist folder using a server of your choice. Verify that the app works offline and that the service worker is registered correctly.