JS minifying/unit tester/builder

Question

Looking for a Windows (or cross-platform) JS builder that

• minifies,
• runs unit tests
• runs jshint/jslint
• can compare to a coding style guide
• can download external sources
• can combine multiple JS files into one combine minified file and adjust references to point to the minified file.

GUI or CLI fine. I presume most of those functions would need to be given hints in some make file like input. Open source preferred but certainly not required.

Answer 1

Grunt is a highly configurable build system. It runs via Node.js and has a multitude of plugins available to do a lot of specific tasks. Individual tasks are highly configurable and writing new tasks is also quite easy.

To go over the requirements:

• minifies: Yes for JavaScript via the official uglify, for images via the official imagemin, for CSS via the official CSSMin and for HTML also has an official minifier plugin.
• runs unit tests: Yes multiple different unit testing frameworks have grunt plugins - two popular and officially supported ones are NodeUnit and QUnit
• runs jshint/jslint: Yes - there is an official jshint integration plugin.
• can compare to a coding style guide: Yes - via the jscs it is very easy and that plugin also includes a whole ton of presets so is really great.
• can download external sources: If set up right it can though I haven't ended up needing this.
• can combine multiple JS files into one combine minified file and adjust the html's links to reference only that file: the Concat official plugin will do this if set up right or see also the UseMin plugin.