Grunt watch Running "watch" task Waiting

Question

I have a problem with grunt-watch. When I use "grunt" in terminal outputs "Running "watch" task Waiting..."

krp-arina@krparina-Lenovo-G555:~/server$ grunt
Running "watch" task
Waiting...
krp-arina@krparina-Lenovo-G555:~/server$ grunt -v
Initializing
Command-line options: --verbose

Reading "Gruntfile.js" Gruntfile...OK

Registering Gruntfile tasks.

Registering "grunt-contrib-less" local Npm module tasks.
Reading /home/krp-arina/server/node_modules/grunt-contrib-less/package.json...OK
Parsing /home/krp-arina/server/node_modules/grunt-contrib-less/package.json...OK
Loading "less.js" tasks...OK
+ less

Registering "grunt-contrib-watch" local Npm module tasks.
Reading /home/krp-arina/server/node_modules/grunt-contrib-watch/package.json...OK
Parsing /home/krp-arina/server/node_modules/grunt-contrib-watch/package.json...OK
Loading "watch.js" tasks...OK
+ watch
Reading package.json...OK
Parsing package.json...OK
Initializing config...OK
Loading "Gruntfile.js" tasks...OK
+ default, w

No tasks specified, running default tasks.
Running tasks: default

Running "default" task

Running "watch" task
Waiting...
Verifying property watch exists in config...OK

But this does nothing, it just ends.

I want to compile less at each change. Here's my Gruntfile.js

module.exports = function(grunt) {
  require('load-grunt-tasks')(grunt);
  // Project configuration.

  grunt.initConfig({
    pkg: grunt.file.readJSON('package.json'),
    less: {
      dist:{
        files: {
          'pd_wp/www/wp-content/themes/anarchy/css/commons.css':'pd_wp/www/wp-content/themes/anarchy/css/commons.less'
        },
        options: {
          compress: true,
          cleancss: false
        }
      }
    },
    watch: {
      options: {
        less: {
          files: ['pd_wp/www/wp-content/themes/anarchy/css/*.less'],
          tasks: ['less'],
          // options: {
          //   spawn: false
          // }
        }
      }
    }
  });


  // Default task(s).
  grunt.registerTask('w', ['watch']);
  grunt.registerTask('default', ['watch']);

};

I use grunt-cli v0.1.13 grunt v0.4.5 grunt-contrib-less v1.0.0 grunt-contrib-watch v0.6.1 load-grunt-tasks v3.1.0

nodejs v0.12.1

Somebody tell me what am I doing wrong

Answer 1

I'm pretty sure your issue here is the order of your json config. I may be wrong though. The docs list watch: { taskName: { options: {} } }

and you have

watch: { options: { taskName: {} } }

have you tried this:

watch: {
      less: {
          files: ['pd_wp/www/wp-content/themes/anarchy/css/*.less'],
          tasks: ['less']
      }
  }

grunt-contrib-watch docs

Answer 2

You have to specify a task example:

grunt postcss

If you are not sure, invoke grunt -help:

grunt -help
Grunt: The JavaScript Task Runner (v0.4.5)

Usage
 grunt [options] [task [task ...]]

Options
    --help, -h  Display this help text.                                        
        --base  Specify an alternate base path. By default, all file paths are 
                relative to the Gruntfile. (grunt.file.setBase) *              
    --no-color  Disable colored output.                                        
   --gruntfile  Specify an alternate Gruntfile. By default, grunt looks in the 
                current or parent directories for the nearest Gruntfile.js or  
                Gruntfile.coffee file.                                         
   --debug, -d  Enable debugging mode for tasks that support it.               
       --stack  Print a stack trace when exiting with a warning or fatal error.
   --force, -f  A way to force your way past warnings. Want a suggestion? Don't
                use this option, fix your code.                                
       --tasks  Additional directory paths to scan for task and "extra" files. 
                (grunt.loadTasks) *                                            
         --npm  Npm-installed grunt plugins to scan for task and "extra" files.
                (grunt.loadNpmTasks) *                                         
    --no-write  Disable writing files (dry run).                               
 --verbose, -v  Verbose mode. A lot more information output.                   
 --version, -V  Print the grunt version. Combine with --verbose for more info. 
  --completion  Output shell auto-completion rules. See the grunt-cli          
                documentation for more information.                            

Options marked with * have methods exposed via the grunt API and should instead
be specified inside the Gruntfile wherever possible.

Available tasks
          sass  Compile Sass to CSS *                                          
       postcss  Process CSS files. *                                           
         watch  Run predefined tasks whenever watched files change.            
       default  Alias for "watch" task.                                        

Tasks run in the order specified. Arguments may be passed to tasks that accept
them by using colons, like "lint:files". Tasks marked with * are "multi tasks"
and will iterate over all sub-targets if no argument is specified.

The list of available tasks may change based on tasks directories or grunt
plugins specified in the Gruntfile or via command-line options.

For more information, see http://gruntjs.com/

Here is the runtime example of postcss

francoisgravel@LMSD-FGRAVEL vistage-mv3 % grunt postcss
Running "postcss:dist" (postcss) task
Browserslist: caniuse-lite is outdated. Please run next command `npm update`
>> 1 processed stylesheet created.

Done, without errors.