Clearing the Vite dependency cache

Two ways, same result

The flag tells the optimizer to ignore what it has and re-bundle. Deleting the directory does the same thing more bluntly.

$ npm run dev -- --force

# or
$ rm -rf node_modules/.vite

What is in there

Your dependencies, pre-bundled. Vite converts packages to ESM once and reuses the result, which is a large part of why the dev server starts as fast as it does. The location is node_modules/.vite by default and follows cacheDir if you move it.

When it genuinely helps

• You changed a dependency by hand — npm link, a patch, an edit inside node_modules.
• You switched branches and package.json went with it.
• A package updated but the browser keeps loading the old code.
• Errors that point inside node_modules and survive a restart.

When it does not

A stale page is more often the browser than the server. Check a hard reload with the cache disabled, and check whether a service worker from an earlier project is still serving that origin — on localhost they outlive the project that installed them, and they will happily serve a build from weeks ago.

Not the browser cache

Two different caches with the same nickname. node_modules/.vite lives on disk and belongs to the dev server; the browser cache lives in the browser. Clearing one does nothing for the other.

• What happens between npm run dev and the page on localhost:5173Starting the Vite dev server takes five steps: npm resolves the vite binary, Vite reads the config, dependencies are pre-bundled, the server listens on 5173, and the browser opens an HMR WebSocket on the first request.
• Dependency pre-bundling on the Vite dev serverVite converts your dependencies to ESM once before serving them on 5173 and caches the result in node_modules/.vite — optimizeDeps controls what goes into that step and what stays out of it.
• Hot Module Replacement on localhost:5173HMR swaps a changed module in the running page over a WebSocket instead of reloading it; when that WebSocket cannot connect, Vite falls back to full page reloads or stops updating at all.
• localhost:5173 — the port itselfWhat the address means, common dev ports, and the autocomplete fix.