How to rewrite URLs to local or remote destinations

URL rewriting

Your application requested /css/style.css but it's stored at /build/css/style.css. To avoid a 404 you need a rewrite rule:

$ ws --rewrite '/css/style.css -> /build/css/style.css'

Or, more generally (matching any stylesheet under /css):

$ ws --rewrite '/css/:stylesheet -> /build/css/:stylesheet'

With a deep CSS directory structure it may be easier to mount the entire contents of /build/css to the /css path:

$ ws --rewrite '/css/* -> /build/css/$1'

this rewrites /css/a as /build/css/a, /css/a/b/c as /build/css/a/b/c etc.

Proxied requests

If the to URL contains a remote host, local-web-server will act as a proxy - fetching and responding with the remote resource.

Mount the npm registry locally:

$ ws --rewrite '/npm/* -> http://registry.npmjs.org/$1'

Map local requests for repo data to the Github API:

$ ws --rewrite '/:user/repos/:name -> https://api.github.com/repos/:user/:name'

See path-to-regexp for the from route syntax.

Config example

{
  rewrite: [
    { from: "/css/*", "to": "/build/styles/$1" },
    { from: "/npm/*", "to": "http://registry.npmjs.org/$1" },
    { from: "/broken/*", "to": "http://localhost:9999" },
    { from: "/:user/repos/:name", "to": "https://api.github.com/repos/:user/:name" }
  ]
}