Add option to disable full reload (hot only)

Clear and concise description of the problem

I’m developing an app that renders some large forms. Hot module reload is great for this, but full page reloads are quite annoying, because they cause the form state to be lost whenever I edit some unrelated file, and they cause the beforeunload handler to trigger when I save a file, causing the browser to steal the focus. Generally, I personally find full page reloads rather undesirable and annoying, while I find hot module reloads really amazing and helpful.

Suggested solution

I would like to have an option to disable full reloads all together, but keep hot module replacement enabled, similar to webpack’s hot only option.

Alternative

No response

Additional context

No response

Validations

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[tomitrescak]

I second that. Vite is now doing full page reloads and we do not understand why.

Is there at least some debug info which can say why the full page refresh happens?

[cdauth]

Personally I would still prefer a configuration option, since I think it is common to want to disable full reloads, so it shouldn’t involve having to add some internal API calls to the frontend code. But the suggested solution works for me, so at least my use case is solved.