You can opt out of webpack with --no-webpack.

Opting out of npm is a bit more problematic because you then have to be responsible for including phoenix_html.js and phoenix.js.

Webpack isn’t an integral part of Phoenix but since Phoenix’s initial release it has included a bundler for convenience and to promote the use of modern modular JavaScript. Initially Phoenix included brunch as a low-maintenance option but webpack has become the defacto standard with the React and Vue community, so Phoenix 1.4 switched to webpack due to popular demand. But nobody is forced to use webpack.

And while SASS will probably remain the standard for complex projects there has been a noticable trend towards simply using modern CSS features like CSS custom properties and a handful of (Node.js powered) PostCSS plugins instead of full-blown SASS for more basic needs.

At the most basic level Phoenix will serve static assets out of

my_app/priv/static

What is picked up from that folder is governed by

my_app/lib/my_app_web/endpoint.ex

  plug Plug.Static,
    at: "/",
    from: :my_app,
    gzip: false,
    only: ~w(css fonts images js favicon.ico robots.txt)

This default configuration will only pick up the favicon.ico and robots.txt files and whatever files are in the css, fonts, images, js folders (Plug.Static Options).

Given that knowledge you should be able to take full control over the content that is being served.

The one disadvantage is that you won’t have the convenience of live reloading during development. That is why the frontend development assets are kept under

my_app/assets

The tooling there typically places any “refreshed” static assets under

my_app/assets/static

so that it can be copied over to

my_app/priv/static

when it is ready.

Phoenix starts the watch script to build the asset files with:

my_app/config/dev.exs

config :my_app, MyAppWeb.Endpoint,
  http: [port: 4000],
  debug_errors: true,
  code_reloader: true,
  check_origin: false,
  watchers: [
    node: [
      "node_modules/webpack/bin/webpack.js",
      "--mode",
      "development",
      "--watch-stdin",
      cd: Path.expand("../assets", __DIR__)
    ]
  ]

via that watchers entry (Phoenix.Endpoint Runtime configuration).

Little bit further down in that same dev.exs:

  live_reload: [
    patterns: [
      ~r"priv/static/.*(js|css|png|jpeg|jpg|gif|svg)$",
      ~r"priv/gettext/.*(po)$",
      ~r"lib/my_app_web/{live,views}/.*(ex)$",
      ~r"lib/my_app_web/templates/.*(eex)$"
    ]
  ]

Those patterns determine what files will trigger Phoenix.LiveReloader to force a refresh in your browser.

This information should be enough for you to put together a frontend development environment of your own preference.

Hello and welcome to the forum…

It’s mostly due to the ever moving js world. There is a post by @peerreynders here that explains how to procede with babel config. Don’t miss the ncu -u part, which is really cool tip to update your npm dependencies.

Don’t forget to add node-sass and sass-loader.

A good start would be to show part of your package.json and webpack.config.js.

These are rules I am using for sass, fonts, images… (in webpack.config.js)

      // Load stylesheets
      {
        test: /\.(css|scss)$/,
        use: [
          MiniCssExtractPlugin.loader,
          'css-loader',
          'sass-loader',
        ]
      },
      // Load images
      {
        test: /\.(png|svg|jpe?g|gif)(\?.*$|$)/,
        loader: 'url-loader?limit=10000',
      },
      // Load fonts
      {
        test: /\.woff(2)?(\?v=[0-9]\.[0-9]\.[0-9])?(\?.*$|$)/,
        use: 'url-loader?&limit=10000&name=/fonts/[name].[ext]',
      },
      {
        test: /\.(eot|ttf|otf)?(\?.*$|$)/,
        loader: 'file-loader?&limit=10000&name=/fonts/[name].[ext]',
      },

The issues you’re having aren’t with Elixir, Phoenix.

I personally don’t use Webpack or any other JS-based build tool exactly because of the issues you’ve encountered. I use a mixture of Rust CLI tools and believe it or not, Make. These integrate well with Phoenix as @peerreynders explained to you.

The issues you’ve encountered are with front-end development in general. JS and the build tools that often come with it are a fact of life unless you can forego JS and other static asset compilation entirely.

Coming to a forum, asking a question and having a number of people write out extremely thorough, clear and well researched answers — that are better than the docs in this case! — only to throw it back in their face with an arrogant, knee-jerk of a response is not cool at all.

If your “one-man webdev business” is going to survive, then you’ll need to learn about how to be nice to people, not compile your Sass without Webpack.