HMR Documentation for App Proxies

[Michael-Gibbons]

Hello! I believe there were some limitations with remix regarding app proxies and HMR.

Shopify/shopify-app-template-remix#436 (comment)

Would it be possible to get updated documentation or confirmation if HMR is supported through app proxies?

If I recall correctly an HMR solution was found that only worked in chrome, now I don't believe that is working anymore.

[byrichardpowell]

Hey 👋

HMR support for App Proxies is difficult. App Proxy usage in a way where HMR matters is also not super common. So I can't promise this is something we'll get to. For now assume that HMR for App Proxy won't work and you will need to refresh the page.

I'll keep this issue open for now.

[Michael-Gibbons]

Thank you for the response I am grateful. The use case would be for any development that requires a build process within a proxy. From an agency perspective any time a client asks for a business solution that requires a proxy development can be cumbersome. But regardless knowing Shopify's stance on this issue is useful information thank you. I wish I hadn't spent all that time trying to get it to work though haha

[nboliver-ventureweb]

@Michael-Gibbons I concur! We spent a ton of time prototyping and trying to follow vague docs to get this working, with no luck in the end. I don't agree with Shopify's stance, as I can think of a ton of use cases for rendering client-side JS in an app-proxy page - particularly from a custom one-off app perspective. There is another issue here FWIW.

What we ended up doing is using a theme app block with Shopify Vite and React. It is not ideal because you have to expose a custom API for your app block to get the data it needs via app proxy, instead of just accessing it directly like you can in a regular route. You also have to jump through hoops to get codegen working, and sharing types takes some setup. It also means the front end is hosted on Shopify separately from your back end.

[Michael-Gibbons]

@nboliver-ventureweb that is a clever workaround thank you for sharing