The watch-admin mode is enabled by default

Page summary:

In Strapi 5, strapi develop starts in watch-admin mode by default, so the admin panel hot reloads without any additional flag. Use --no-watch-admin to disable it.

Watch-admin mode reloads the admin panel automatically while you edit its source files. In Strapi v4 you had to ask for this behavior explicitly, while in Strapi 5 you get it by default and opt out instead.

This page is part of the breaking changes database and provides information about the breaking change and additional instructions to migrate from Strapi v4 to Strapi 5.

 Is this breaking change affecting plugins?No

 Is this breaking change automatically handled by a codemod?No

Breaking change description

In Strapi v4

Watch-admin mode is disabled by default. You start it with the --watch-admin flag:

terminal

strapi develop --watch-admin

A separate strapi watch-admin command is also available.

In Strapi 5

Watch-admin mode is enabled by default, so strapi develop alone hot reloads the admin panel. The --no-watch-admin flag disables it:

terminal

strapi develop --no-watch-admin

The standalone strapi watch-admin command is removed.

Migration

This section regroups useful notes and procedures about the introduced breaking change.

Notes

Passing --watch-admin in Strapi 5 is not an error, since the flag still exists and already defaults to true. Scripts that use it keep working, but the flag is redundant.

If watch-admin mode is disabled, you can also use --no-build-admin to prevent the admin panel from being built.

Manual migration

To migrate to Strapi 5:

1. Search your package.json scripts, Dockerfiles, and CI configuration files for --watch-admin and strapi watch-admin.
2. Replace any strapi watch-admin command with strapi develop.
3. Remove the now-redundant --watch-admin flags, or keep them if you prefer being explicit.
4. Add --no-watch-admin to the commands that must not hot reload the admin panel, such as scripts that previously relied on watch-admin mode being off by default.

Note

See the CLI reference for the full list of options accepted by the strapi develop command.