Command Line Interface

The command line interface allows you to do most of the things you'd do with the JavaScript API.

First, install rollup as a global module:

npm install -g rollup

(Alternatively, if you're using the rollup command in the context of an npm run script, you can install it as a devDependency for each project, using npm i -D rollup.)

Run rollup -h or rollup --help to view usage instructions.

Usage

rollup [options] <entry file>

• -v, --version – show version number
• -c, --config - Use this config file (if argument is used but value is unspecified, defaults to rollup.config.js)
• -i, --input – input (alternative to <entry file>)
• -o, --output – output (if absent, prints to stdout. See note 1)
• -f, --format – the output format (see format)
• -e, --external – comma-separated list of module IDs to exclude (see external)
• -g, --globals – comma-separated list of id:name pairs (see globals, and note 2)
• -n, --name – name of bundle in UMD/IIFE output (see moduleName)
• -u, --id – ID for AMD module (default is anonymous) (see moduleId)
• -m, --sourcemap – generate sourcemap (-m inline for inline map)
• --no-strict – disable 'use strict' in generated code
• --no-indent – disable indentation

Notes

1. When piping to stdout, only inline sourcemaps are permitted
2. Any IDs included with the --globals option are automatically added as --external modules

Examples

# create a self-executing bundle...
rollup --format iife -- src/app.js > build/app.js

# ...with inline sourcemaps:
rollup -f iife --sourcemap inline -- src/app.js > build/app.js

# create a bundle with dependencies on jQuery and Angular,
# with a sourcemap in a separate file
rollup -f iife --globals jquery:jQuery,angular:ng \
  -i src/app.js -o build/app.js -m build/app.js.map

If using the -c or --config option, the config file should look something like:

import babel from 'rollup-plugin-babel';

export default {
  entry: 'src/main.js',
  plugins: [ babel() ],
  format: 'umd'
};

Note: to use rollup-plugin-babel, you need babel and babel-preset-es2015-rollup installed as dev-dependencies and babel needs to be configured to use the es2015-rollup preset. (Reference)

Using a config file

Most options can be specified via the command line directly, but you may prefer to use a 'config file' if you're using plugins, or if you want to set options programmatically.

To use a config file, use the --config or -c option:

# by default, rollup.config.js in the
# current directory is used...
rollup -c

# ...but you can specify a particular file:
rollup -c myotherconfig.js

The config file itself is simply a JavaScript module:

import babel from 'rollup-plugin-babel';

export default {
  entry: 'src/main.js',
  dest: 'dist/bundle.js',
  format: 'umd',
  plugins: [ babel() ]
};

(You can also use require() and module.exports syntax if you prefer.)

Any options specified via the command line will override the equivalent options in the config file – so in the example above, rollup -c -f cjs -o dist/bundle.cjs.js would write a CommonJS file to dist/bundle.cjs.js.