What’s Next?

That was quite a trek, but as a result we have a simple, structured, and easy-to-follow configuration file for our application’s build process. We can use this as we develop new features for our app, and even to prepare the application for production. Your applications don’t have to use CoffeeScript or Sass (although I strongly suggest using a CSS preprocessor instead of writing CSS by hand), but grunt-contrib-concat and grunt-contrib-watch will hopefully find their way into your next project’s workflow. But don’t move on to the next chapter just yet; try these first:

• Investigate other plug-ins for your workflow, such as grunt-contrib-jshint, which checks your JavaScript files for errors, or grunt-contrib-imagemin, which can automatically compress images.^[13][14]

• Use the preprocess option for scripts in the package.json file to call the grunt build task whenever you run npm install. This will make it easy for someone who works on your app to get started with it.

• Investigate Yeoman,^[15] a tool that incorporates project creation with Grunt and gives you a workflow like this automatically, with generators for specific projects.

We’ve integrated a ton of cool plug-ins, but now let’s look into what makes up a Grunt plug-in as we create our own. Go on—turn the page!