Resolvers

Resolvers are created using the enhanced-resolve package. The Resolver class extends the tapable class and uses tapable to provide a few hooks. The enhanced-resolve package can be used directly to create new resolvers, however any compiler instance has a few resolver instances that can be tapped into.

Before reading on, make sure you at least skim through the enhanced-resolve and tapable documentation.

Types

There are three types of built-in resolvers available on the compiler class:

• Normal: Resolves a module via an absolute or relative path.
• Context: Resolves a module within a given context.
• Loader: Resolves a webpack loader.

Depending on need, any one of these built-in resolver used by the compiler can be customized via plugins as such:

compiler.resolverFactory.plugin('resolver [type]', resolver => {
  resolver.hooks.resolve.tapAsync('MyPlugin', params => {
    // ...
  });
});

Where [type] is one of the three resolvers mention above, specified as:

• normal
• context
• loader

See the enhanced-resolve documentation for a full list of hooks and descriptions.

Configuration Options

The resolvers mentioned above can also be customized via a configuration file with the resolve or resolveLoader options. These options allow users to change the resolving behavior through a variety of options including through resolve plugins.

The resolver plugins, e.g. DirectoryNamedPlugin, can be included directly in resolve.plugins rather than using standard plugins. Note that the resolve configuration affects the normal and context resolvers while resolveLoader is used to modify the loader resolver.