ZEN to Run a Local Static Server

While developing applications, learning to use a library or just testing out something quick, you might encounter the need to host your files in a “static” server — meaning that you just need an HTTP server to serve files as-is from a directory — . Nowadays, there are several simple options to get a static server running quickly.

@ritikchoure/zen cli

Here ZEN is also does the same.

For all of the options below that use the command line, I’m assuming that you already entered the folder where your files are located. For example, if your code is in the folder “project”

/
|- project
    |- index.html
    |- js
        |- main.js

You have to first enter to your “project” folder in the command line doing something like this:

cd project

First, you have to install zen cli tool, using below command:

npm i -g @ritikchoure/zen

After successfully installation, just hit the below command:

zen -v
or
zen --version

You’ll see output like this:

> 1.1.10

Now you can zen to serve your static files by using this command:

zen -serve

It starts server with default port 8080. If 8080 port is already in use you can use below command to serve on different port

zen -serve -p portnumber

You’ll see an output like this:

✓ Server listening on port 8080
-------------------------------------------------------
        Local:           http://localhost:8080
        External:        http://192.168.43.110:8080
-------------------------------------------------------

It would automatically open your default browser at the Local URL shown above.

For more you can check out following links -

1. ZEN GitHub Repository

2. ZEN NPM Package Link

3. Author: Ritik Chourasiya

Let me know if you have any issue or any suggestion