If you’ve built anything with Node.js, you’ve probably used nodemon to automatically restart your app when files change. It’s been a go-to developer tool for years — but did you know you no longer need it?

With Node.js 18.11 and above, there’s a built-in --watch option. It tells Node to monitor your source files and automatically restart the process when changes are detected.

node --watch app.js
Bash

That’s it. No configuration, no dependencies, no waiting for external tools to kick in.

It works great when:

  • You’re building small or medium apps.
  • You don’t need advanced features like custom delay or file filters.
  • You want to keep your environment minimal and lean.

Keep in mind that, large projects with complex file structures might still benefit from nodemon or more advanced tools.