Prettier config JS file changes ignored

[MeanderingProgrammer]

After the initial load in a workspace, changing a JavaScript prettier config has no impact and requires restarting prettierd.

After looking through the code, I believe this is due to how Node caches imports and how prettier handles the resolveConfig method call.

Even though useCache: false should result in the configuration being reloaded looking through the prettier implementation when a JS config is reloaded it makes this method call: https://github.com/prettier/prettier/blob/main/src/config/prettier-config/loaders.js#L20

async function loadJs(file) {
  const module = await import(pathToFileURL(file).href);
  return module.default;
}

Since the file path is the same on reload the Node import caching behavior will return the same configuration as before.

Though I am not very familiar with import caching, that is my understanding from reading: https://nodejs.org/api/modules.html#caching.

• Related issue: Invalidate cache when using import nodejs/node#49442

This may be something that needs to be fixed on prettier's side, at least if my understanding is correct. I've created an issue there as well: prettier/prettier#16234.

I am unsure if there is something that can be done on this side. Using non JS configurations works as expected since files are re-read and re-parsed by prettier.

May just be something to be aware and mark as a note.

[MeanderingProgrammer]

As a patch in Neovim I added the following auto command to restart prettierd on config changes:

vim.api.nvim_create_autocmd({ 'BufWritePost' }, {
    group = vim.api.nvim_create_augroup('RestartPrettierd', { clear = true }),
    pattern = '*prettier*',
    callback = function()
        vim.fn.system('prettierd restart')
    end,
})

[thekaganugur]

As a patch in Neovim I added the following auto command to restart prettierd on config changes:

vim.api.nvim_create_autocmd({ 'BufWritePost' }, {
    group = vim.api.nvim_create_augroup('RestartPrettierd', { clear = true }),
    pattern = '*prettier*',
    callback = function()
        vim.fn.system('prettierd restart')
    end,
})

This is a really cool solution. Thanks! :)

[Glup3]

As a patch in Neovim I added the following auto command to restart prettierd on config changes:

vim.api.nvim_create_autocmd({ 'BufWritePost' }, {
    group = vim.api.nvim_create_augroup('RestartPrettierd', { clear = true }),
    pattern = '*prettier*',
    callback = function()
        vim.fn.system('prettierd restart')
    end,
})

Thank you very much for this fix!

[sghng]

I encountered the same problem but it's worse. It seems that prettierd doesn't reload the configs even after restarting nvim.

[MeanderingProgrammer]

It seems that prettierd doesn't reload the configs even after restarting nvim.

That's the expected behavior, prettierd is a process that lives outside the bounds of neovim, whether neovim gets restarted or not is essentially irrelevant. It's different from most processes like LSPs, where the lifecycle is bound to the parent process and so gets killed when neovim does. Because it doesn't need to spin back up for every format call it is faster, but it means you need to interact with it directly to fix "bad" states.