⚡ alive

A lightweight, asynchronous static HTTP server for development featuring smart live-reloading without full page refreshes.

Powered by Python asyncio and watchfiles, it utilizes SSE (Server-Sent Events) and Idiomorph to morph the DOM tree instantly when files change

🔥 Features

• ⚡ Flicker-Free Reloads: Updates code instantly without annoying screen flashes.
• 💾 State Preservation: Maintains inputs, scroll positions, and form data across updates.
• 🎨 Smooth Assets Morphing: Hot-swaps HTML, CSS, and all popular image formats seamlessly.
• 🌐 Fully Asynchronous: Engineered entirely on asyncio for maximum concurrent performance.

🛠️ Tech Stack

• Python 3.10+ (asyncio ecosystem)
• watchfiles — Fast, Rust-backed cross-platform file watching
• SSE (Server-Sent Events) — Native unidirectional browser streaming
• Idiomorph — Advanced Javascript library for morphing elements

💡 Use Cases

alive was developed for Documentation Dev Mode (Sphinx, MkDocs), but you can use it for any python tooling that needs to display changing html documents.

[!warning] alive is not suitable if if you need to serve something more than static websites, such as complex javascript scripts or Single Page Applications

🚀 Quick Start

Installation

pip install alive

Command Line Interface

Run the server inside your project directory:

alive public/ --port 8080

Programmatic Usage

Embed the server directly into your Python scripts:

from alive import LiveServer

server = AliveServer("public/", port=8080)
server.run()

[!tip] Async Context Support

If you are already inside an existing event loop, use await server.serve() instead of server.run() to avoid blocking your application.

📝 License

MIT