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External tools

Last modified: 22 November 2024

The recommended way to use third-party standalone applications, such as compilers, linters, code compressors, and so on, is to configure a tool-specific File Watcher. This File Watcher will track changes to your files and run the application automatically when required. For more information, refer to File Watchers.

Alternatively, you can configure a standalone third-party application in WebStorm as an external tool. As a result, a tool-specific command is added to the main menu and possibly to context menus, so you can run the tool right from WebStorm. You can also configure to run the tool before a run/debug configuration. And of course you can run it from the built-in Terminal AltF12.

WebStorm allows you to pass contextual information from your project to the external tool as command-line arguments (for example, the currently selected file or the sourcemap directive) and view the output produced by the tool.

WebStorm supports the following types of external tools:

  • Local tools run locally on your computer.

  • Remote tools are executed on a remote server over SSH.