#Render Refresh

After a successful backend soft reload in development, Render Refresh tells the browser to request the page again according to the changed file's scope. It requires frontend enabled, frontend.dev.hot: true, and a page that loads the browser runtime. Production and hydration: "none" pages do not consume the notification.

#What Triggers It

The current trigger recognizes changes under src/routes/**, src/services/**, and src/middlewares/**, plus a full src reload. It does not analyze whether a changed file really affects the current page. Typical cases include:

• route handler changes the props passed to res.render()
• service used by a page route changes
• layout data shape changes
• render-data processing in one of those middleware files

These changes happen on the server, so refreshing only React components cannot fetch new server data. Editing src/locales/** alone, changing a runtime cache, or changing the database does not by itself publish a render-reload event; request the page again manually. A custom backend directory can participate in reload, but this notification check still uses the default paths above.

#Configuration

export default {
  frontend: {
    enabled: true,
    dev: {
      renderRefresh: "prompt",
    },
  },
};

#Recommended Default

The default is "prompt". It avoids unexpected loss of browser state. A prompt says that relevant code reloaded, not that the current page's data necessarily changed.

Use "auto" for demos, design review, or fast page-building sessions where preserving browser state is less important.

Use "off" when testing long-running client state and you want manual control.

#Runtime Calls Do Not Refresh

Calling res.render() during a normal request does not trigger a development refresh. A successful soft reload of the paths above does; a failed reload does not publish a success notification. Configuration changes cause a different cold-restart flow; see Development Workflow.

#Verify the Notification and New Data

Use the dashboard example from Data Flow. Run npm run dev in the app root and open /dashboard. Change the route's fixed count and wait for a successful terminal soft reload. In prompt mode, follow the prompt to reload and see the new count; auto mode reloads fully, while off mode requires a manual refresh. Switching the configuration itself restarts the development environment, so check that the new setting loaded before comparing behavior.

Inspect the Console and SSE connection as well. A prompt does not guarantee the next request succeeds: verify the response status and rendered content after refresh. Restore the example data and stop the service. This feature does not provide production data push, cache subscriptions, or application real-time notifications.