Reload plugin when using `jekyll serve`

Question

I'm developing a Jekyll plugin. When I run the jekyll serve command, site files are regenerated when I change any markdown, html, or plugin files, as expected. The problem I've found is that while markdown/HTML files are regenerated, the plugins themselves are not reloaded. I have to terminate jekyll serve and issue the command again for the plugin changes to go into effect. Is there a way to make it so that the plugins get reloaded automatically when changed?

This is for Jekyll 3.1.2.

Answer 1

Based on the suggestion from @DavidJacquel and the gist I found here, I used Gulp with this gulpfile

'use strict';

var gulp = require('gulp'),
    express = require('express'),
    spawn = require('child_process').spawn;

var jekyll_file = process.platform === 'win32' ? 'jekyll.bat' : 'jekyll';

gulp.task('jekyll', () => {
  var jekyll = spawn(jekyll_file, ['build', '--incremental']);

  var output = '';
  jekyll.stdout.on('data', (t) => { output += t; });
  jekyll.stderr.on('data', (t) => { output += t; });

  jekyll.on('exit', (code) => {
    if (code)
      console.log(`Jekyll exited with code: ${code}\n${output}`);
    else
      console.log("Finished Jekyll build");
  });
});


gulp.task('serve', () => {
  var server = express();
  server.use(express.static('_site/'));
  server.listen(4000);
});

gulp.task('watch', () => {
  gulp.watch(['**/*.html', '**/*.md', '_plugins/*.rb', '!_site/**/*'], ['jekyll']);
});

gulp.task('default', ['jekyll', 'serve', 'watch']);

to get the desired effect. Also created issue here.