Reload on code changes

When developing a websockets server, you are likely to run it locally to test changes. Unfortunately, whenever you want to try a new version of the code, you must stop the server and restart it, which slows down your development process.

Web frameworks such as Django or Flask provide a development server that reloads the application automatically when you make code changes. There is no equivalent functionality in websockets because it’s designed only for production.

However, you can achieve the same result easily with a third-party library and a shell command.

Install watchdog with the watchmedo shell utility:

$ pip install 'watchdog[watchmedo]'

Run your server with watchmedo auto-restart:

$ watchmedo auto-restart --pattern "*.py" --recursive --signal SIGTERM \
    python app.py

This example assumes that the server is defined in a script called app.py and exits cleanly when receiving the SIGTERM signal. Adapt as necessary.