asgi-autoreload

Development middleware for Python ASGI frameworks that automatically reloads the browser when files change.

It works by injecting a small SSE client script into every HTML response. When a watched file changes, the server pushes a reload event and the browser refreshes — no manual F5 needed.

Compatible with Django, FastAPI, Starlette, and Litestar.

Installation

# Django (via Daphne)
pip install asgi-autoreload[django]

# FastAPI
pip install asgi-autoreload[fastapi]

# Starlette
pip install asgi-autoreload[starlette]

# Litestar
pip install asgi-autoreload[litestar]

Usage

FastAPI

Use the fastapi-autoreload CLI as a drop-in replacement for fastapi dev. It accepts all the same options, plus:

• --watch — paths to monitor (default: .)
• -- <command> — build command to run on startup and on each file change

fastapi-autoreload dev main.py
fastapi-autoreload dev main.py --watch src --watch templates
fastapi-autoreload dev main.py --host 0.0.0.0 --port 8080

# Run a build step before each browser reload
fastapi-autoreload dev main.py -- npm run build
fastapi-autoreload dev main.py --watch src -- npx tailwindcss -i src/input.css -o static/output.css

See examples/fastapi/ for a complete working example.

Django

Add asgi_autoreload.django to INSTALLED_APPS, then use the custom management command instead of runserver:

# settings.py
INSTALLED_APPS = [
    ...
    "asgi_autoreload.django",
]

python manage.py autoreload_runserver
python manage.py autoreload_runserver --watch src --watch templates

# Run a build step before each browser reload
python manage.py autoreload_runserver -- npm run build
python manage.py autoreload_runserver --watch src -- npx tailwindcss -i src/input.css -o static/output.css

This wraps Daphne's ASGI server with the autoreload middleware. Make sure your project is configured with an ASGI application (ASGI_APPLICATION in settings).

See examples/django/ for a complete working example.

Starlette

Wrap your application manually with AutoreloadMiddleware:

from starlette.applications import Starlette
from asgi_autoreload import AutoreloadMiddleware

app = Starlette(...)
app = AutoreloadMiddleware(
    app,
    watch_paths=["src", "templates"],
    build_command=["npm", "run", "build"],  # optional
)

uvicorn main:app

Litestar

Same approach as Starlette — wrap the app directly:

from litestar import Litestar
from asgi_autoreload import AutoreloadMiddleware

app = Litestar([...])
app = AutoreloadMiddleware(
    app,
    watch_paths=["src", "templates"],
    build_command=["npm", "run", "build"],  # optional
)

uvicorn main:app

See examples/litestar/ for a complete working example.

How it works

• HTML injection — a <script> tag opening an EventSource('/_autoreload') connection is injected before </body> in every text/html response. Compressed responses (Content-Encoding: gzip, etc.) are left untouched.
• SSE endpoint — /_autoreload is handled by the middleware itself and streams reload events to connected browsers.
• File watcher — watchfiles monitors the specified paths and triggers a broadcast on any change.
• Build command — if provided, the command runs once on startup and again before each browser reload, so assets are always up to date when the page refreshes.
• ASGI lifecycle — the watcher starts on lifespan.startup and stops cleanly on lifespan.shutdown. If lifespan is not supported by the server, it starts lazily on the first request.