# esbuild-minify-templates > Minify template literal strings as part of an esbuild powered build process Latest version **0.13.1** (published 2025-08-13) · MIT license · 0 weekly downloads ## Install ```sh npm install esbuild-minify-templates pnpm add esbuild-minify-templates yarn add esbuild-minify-templates bun add esbuild-minify-templates ``` ## Health **Score 55/100 (C)** — status: stable. Positive: has types; esm support; no vulnerabilities; has provenance; high quality score. Warnings: low downloads; pre 1.0. Negative: stale. ## Facts | | | |---|---| | Version | 0.13.1 | | Published | 2025-08-13 | | First published | 2021-04-12 | | Weekly downloads | 0 | | License | MIT | | TypeScript types | bundled | | Module format | ESM + CommonJS | | Node | >= 12 | | Dependencies | 4 | | Unpacked size | 33.3 KB | | Known vulnerabilities | 0 | | Install scripts | no | | Provenance | attested (GitHub Actions) | | GitHub stars | 15 | | Author | Max Milton | | Maintainers | maxmilton | ## Links - npm: https://www.npmjs.com/package/esbuild-minify-templates - Repository: https://github.com/maxmilton/esbuild-minify-templates - Issues: https://github.com/maxmilton/esbuild-minify-templates/issues - npm.io page: https://npm.io/package/esbuild-minify-templates ## Dependencies (4) - [astray](https://npm.io/package/astray.md) ^1.1.1 - [meriyah](https://npm.io/package/meriyah.md) ^6.1.4 - [magic-string](https://npm.io/package/magic-string.md) ^0.30.17 - [@jridgewell/remapping](https://npm.io/package/@jridgewell/remapping.md) ^2.3.5 ## Recent versions - 0.13.1 (latest) — 2025-08-13 - 0.13.0 — 2025-08-13 - 0.12.0 — 2025-06-26 - 0.11.1 — 2025-05-03 - 0.11.0 — 2023-06-05 - 0.10.0 — 2023-02-06 - 0.9.3 — 2022-12-08 - 0.9.2 — 2022-08-10 - 0.9.1 — 2022-08-10 - 0.9.0 — 2022-08-07 - 0.8.0 — 2022-04-10 - 0.7.3 — 2022-01-31 - 0.7.2 — 2021-12-27 - 0.7.1 — 2021-12-12 - 0.7.0 — 2021-11-02 - … 14 more at https://npm.io/package/esbuild-minify-templates/versions ## README [![CI status](https://badgen.net/github/checks/maxmilton/esbuild-minify-templates?label=ci)](https://github.com/maxmilton/esbuild-minify-templates/actions) [![Coverage %](https://badgen.net/codeclimate/coverage/maxmilton/esbuild-minify-templates)](https://codeclimate.com/github/maxmilton/esbuild-minify-templates) [![NPM version](https://badgen.net/npm/v/esbuild-minify-templates)](https://www.npmjs.com/package/esbuild-minify-templates) [![Licence](https://badgen.net/github/license/maxmilton/esbuild-minify-templates)](./LICENSE) [![Minified size](https://badgen.net/bundlephobia/minzip/esbuild-minify-templates)](https://bundlephobia.com/package/esbuild-minify-templates) ![Dependency count](https://badgen.net/bundlephobia/dependency-count/esbuild-minify-templates) # esbuild-minify-templates Tools to minify [template literal strings](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Template_literals) as part of an [esbuild](https://esbuild.github.io/) powered build process. **Features:** - Collapses whitespace in template literal strings - Removes whitespace in template literal strings around HTML tags - Source map support - Ignore specific template literals ## Installation ```sh npm install --save-dev esbuild-minify-templates ``` ## Usage Add the two esbuild plugins to your build options and set the [write option](https://esbuild.github.io/api/#write) to false. `build.mjs`: ```js import esbuild from "esbuild"; import { minifyTemplates, writeFiles } from "esbuild-minify-templates"; await esbuild.build({ entryPoints: ["src/index.ts"], outfile: "dist/index.js", plugins: [minifyTemplates(), writeFiles()], // <-- bundle: true, sourcemap: true, write: false, // <-- important! }); ``` ### Production only If you only want to minify templates in certain builds, set the [esbuild `write` option](https://esbuild.github.io/api/#write) to `true` when you want to skip minification. The `minifyTemplates` and `writeFiles` plugins will do nothing in this case. For example: ```js esbuild.build({ ... write: process.env.NODE_ENV !== "production", }) ``` ## Options ### `minifyTemplates(opts?)` #### `keepComments` Type: `boolean` Default: `false` By default HTML comments are removed within your template literals. By setting `keepComments` to true, comments will be left in place (but whitespace etc. will still be minified within them). #### `taggedOnly` Type: `boolean` Default: `false` Only minify [tagged template literals](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Template_literals#tagged_templates) (instead of all template literals). ### `writeFiles()` The plugin has no options but is required to write out in-memory sources to disk. This must be performed separately because esbuild currently has no way to access or modify build output without setting the `write` build option to false. Place this plugin after plugins which modify build output. ## Ignoring specific template literals > Tip: An alternative workaround is to use regular non-template strings for the strings you want to keep untouched. If you run into a situation where you don't want a certain template literal string to be minified, you can add a `/*! minify-templates-ignore */` block comment on the line directly before it. This is especially useful for using template literals with the `RegExp` constructor or otherwise in situations where whitespace is meaningful. > Note: This will only work with the [esbuild `minify` option](https://esbuild.github.io/api/#minify) set to `false` and [esbuild `legalComments` option](https://esbuild.github.io/api/#legal-comments) set to `'inline'` because, other than legal comments and pure annotations, esbuild strips out all comments before we can read them. See . Minify false is required because currently this plugin's logic is overly simple and works with line offsets. > > This feature should be used as a last resort and so is currently not ergonomic to use. > > A solution for minification is to pass the output back into a second `esbuild.build()` for minify only. Or use another minification tool like [terser](https://github.com/terser/terser) which has the added benefit of generating a [1–2% smaller output](https://github.com/privatenumber/minification-benchmarks#-results) than esbuild's minification (but is much slower). `ignore-examples.js`: ```js // Dynamically constructed regular expression /*! minify-templates-ignore */ const re = new RegExp(` <-- ${commentMsg}`, "g"); // String where whitespace is meaningful /*! minify-templates-ignore */ codeEditor.setContent(` body { font-size: 20px; color: coral; } `); ``` ## Standalone minification ### Template literals You can also do template literal minification separately. The `minify` function takes JavaScript source code as input and will minify template literals within it. It also takes the same options as `minifyTemplates` as a second argument. Also note that this exports a `MagicString` instance, so you need to call [magicstring's `.toString()`](https://github.com/Rich-Harris/magic-string#stostring) on it. ```js import { minify } from "esbuild-minify-templates"; const result = minify("let a = `x y`;"); console.log(result.toString()); // "let a = `x y`;" ``` ### HTML code strings In situations where you have HTML code as a plain string, this package also exports a `stripWhitespace` function for standalone use. ```js import { stripWhitespace } from "esbuild-minify-templates"; const result = stripWhitespace("x y"); console.log(result); // "x y" ``` ## Changelog See [releases on GitHub](https://github.com/maxmilton/esbuild-minify-templates/releases). ## Licence MIT license. See [LICENSE](./LICENSE). --- © 2025 [Max Milton](https://maxmilton.com) --- _Source: https://npm.io/package/esbuild-minify-templates · Machine-readable twin of the npm.io package page. Health data is recomputed on every publish._