What is the problem this feature will solve?

The new --watch flag will automatically restart the process when any imported file is changed.

The new related --watch-path flag will restart the process when one of the added paths change.

Using --watch-path disables the automatic restarting based on imported modules.

--watch is what you want 99% of the time, but there are cases where you want to extend the watched files ever-so-slightly.

One such example is .env when used with the dotenv module. No matter if you do it programmatically, or through the use of a -r flag to the node process, changes in the .env. file will not trigger a reload.

Other examples could be configuration files in json, yaml og toml formats.

What is the feature you are proposing to solve the problem?

A new flag which will allow extending the set of watched files based on what is imported/required, with specific non-js files which are loaded through non-discoverable methods, without disabling the automatic discovery of files.

The automatic discoverability of files to watch is a killer feature! Unfortunately not being able to add individual files to the watched set is preventing me from using it.

What alternatives have you considered?

I can keep using nodemon or the current --watch-path feature, but have to enumerate and eagerly watch all files that could possibly be loaded. But as --watch-path does not work on Linux it will likely have to be nodemon.