feat: node.js app doesn't reload when files change

[EvHaus]

Question

I'm using Bolt JS with Slack CLI (slack run command). If I modify the manifest.json file in the root of my project, I see:

File change detected: /slack-bolt-app/manifest.json, reinstalling app...
App successfully reinstalled

However, if I modify any other application file, my app isn't reloaded. This is frustrating because I have to shutdown and restart the Slack app on every line change I want to test.

Looking at the code, I see that (maybe) the Slack CLI provides some mechanisms already to specify the Regex file paths which should be monitored for changes (code)? But I'm not sure how to use them slack run --watch says "unknown flag: --watch".

Any advice on how I could debug this further would be great.

Version

Using slack v3.9.2

OS Info

ProductName: macOS
ProductVersion: 26.1
BuildVersion: 25B78
Darwin Kernel Version 25.1.0: Mon Oct 20 19:33:00 PDT 2025; root:xnu-12377.41.6~2/RELEASE_ARM64_T6020

Steps to reproduce:

1. Run the getting started Bolt JS app: https://github.com/slackapi/bolt-js/tree/main/examples/getting-started-typescript
2. Modify a file in src/
3. BUG: Slack app is not reinstalled

Expected result:

Any file changes in my project should trigger an Slack app reinstall when using slack run

Actual result:

Nothing happens

Requirements

• I've read and understood the Contributing guidelines and have done my best effort to follow them.
• I've read and agree to the Code of Conduct.
• I've searched for any related issues and avoided creating a duplicate issue.

[mwbrooks]

Hi @EvHaus 👋🏻

Thank you for the sharing this feedback! 🙇🏻 We're aware of this feature gap, but haven't been able to prioritized it. Thanks to your feedback, we should be able to move this up our backlog 🙂

I understand how frustrating this can be for your development workflow. A workaround is to add the following line to your project's .slack/hooks.json file:

"start": "node --watch app.js"

A complete version of your file may look like:

{
  "hooks": {
    "get-hooks": "npx -q --no-install -p @slack/cli-hooks slack-cli-get-hooks",
    "start": "node --watch app.js"
  }
}

You could also change this to run a custom npm script, such as "start": "npm run start-dev".

As a heads up, you won't see the File change detected: message, because the file reloading is handled by the node process instead of slack.

Thanks to your feedback, we'll look into how we can enable node file change detection in development while disabling it in production. 👌🏻

[EvHaus]

Thanks for the quick response. The hook approach seems to be working well!

[mwbrooks]

Awesome, that's great to hear @EvHaus 🙌🏻

We'll keep this issue open as a feature request for Node file change support. Thanks again for taking the time to submit it.