Vite: Under the Hood

Invisible Until It Isn’t

One of Vite’s biggest strengths is that you rarely have to think about it.

You run a command.
A server starts.
Things just work.

But understanding why they work makes everything else easier.

With Vite, the dev server isn’t a convenience.

It is the tool.

Its job is to:

Everything else builds on that.

When the browser requests a file:

There’s no giant bundle being rebuilt on every save.

That’s why it feels instant.

When you edit a file:

The page doesn’t fully reload.

State stays intact.

That tight feedback loop is the difference between working and waiting.

Bundling is expensive.

So Vite doesn’t do it during development.

Instead:

Bundling happens later — when it actually matters.

Vite isn’t skipping optimization.

It’s deferring it.

When you run vite build:

Same project.
Different phase.

Because the browser does more of the work:

This is why most Vite projects have very small config files.

Or none at all.

Think of Vite as:

Not a pile of tasks.

Not a maze of scripts.

Just ground to stand on.

Now that you’ve seen how Vite works, it’s time to put it directly next to the old model and lock the difference in place.