Vite plugin triggers hard reload when touching some file that's not in the module graph

[ulrichstark]

What version of Tailwind CSS are you using?

v4.2.1

What build tool (or framework if it abstracts the build tool) are you using?

Vite 7.3.1

What version of Node.js are you using?

v24.10.0

What browser are you using?

Chrome

What operating system are you using?

macOS

Reproduction URL

https://github.com/ulrichstark/repro-tailwind-hard-reload-when-deleting-file-not-in-module-graph

Run the dev server in my repro, open the page and then delete someFile.json.

Describe your issue

Probably since #19670, when touching some file that's not in the module graph, the tailwind vite plugin triggers an hard reload in the browser. It seems like the target of the mentioned PR was to reload on every change of a file that's not in a module graph. I don't think this should be the expected behaviour.

[RobinMalfait]

Hey! It's doing a full refresh if the file in question is:

• Not part of the module graph (aka an asset file)
• Is being watched by Tailwind CSS
• Isn't handled as a non-asset file already (because then the default HMR can do its thing)

In your case, since the someFile.json file won't contain any Tailwind CSS classes than you can mark that file (or all .json files in the src/ folder) with @source not:

@import "tailwindcss";
@source not "./*.json";

That way these files won't be watched by Tailwind CSS, won't be scanned for classes and wouldn't cause a full page refresh. One small benefit of this in large repo's is that you can improve performance a bit if a lot of known unnecessary files are skipped.

I think for now we want to keep the current behavior (since this is how it used to work in older versions) and because you can opt-out via @source not. But if more people run into this, then we can re-think this behavior and see if we can somehow improve it.

Hope this helps!

[ulrichstark]

Hey Robin, thanks for your quick response! I have a few followup question.

Is the set of files being watched by Vite the same set of files that are considered to be in the module graph?

How does Tailwind determine which files to watch?

Are the conditions something like the following?

• Not yet watched by Vite
• and In the /src directory
• and has file extension json, html, ...

[RobinMalfait]

@ulrichstark the files being watched are unrelated to the Vite module graph. Here's some more information about which files are being scanned: https://tailwindcss.com/docs/detecting-classes-in-source-files#which-files-are-scanned