René's URL Explorer Experiment

{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"DiscussionForumPosting","headline":"Options to disable WebDevServer's historyApiFallback","articleBody":"Currently, `ng serve` will serve up the index page whenever an HTTP 404 error would otherwise occur. There are several instances where this is problematic:\r\n* You've configured the router to use URL fragments (aka \"#\" hash) and want local development server to mirror production usage -- so that \"works on my machine\" isn't as possible\r\n* You're trying to serve a new file and you're not sure if it's being bundled/output/copied successfully. It's frustrating when you try to browse around to find the new file and get index.html contents instead\r\n\r\n### Repro steps\r\n* Configure your angular app's router to use URL fragments (aka hash, \"#\")\r\n* Possibly make changes to `.angular-cli.json`\r\n* Open http://localhost:4200/page-that-does-not-exist.html\r\n\r\n### Observed behavior\r\n* http://localhost:4200/page-that-does-not-exist.html will serve up the app's index page\r\n\r\n### Desired behavior\r\n* I want those 404 Not Found's!\r\n\r\n### Notes\r\nWhile it would be *fantastic* if the cli could inspect the app to determine that the router was configured with [`{ useHash: true}`](https://angular.io/api/router/ExtraOptions#members), I'd also be willing to accept a command-line parameter or some new option in `.angular-cli.json`.\r\n\r\nThe 404-handling is using WebpackDevServer's [.historyApiFallback option](https://webpack.js.org/configuration/dev-server/#devserver-historyapifallback).\r\n\r\nSee also: [./packages/@angular/cli/tasks/serve.ts](https://github.com/angular/angular-cli/blob/a40e801a954fd4b79e8f042f9e1692971feadf9e/packages/%40angular/cli/tasks/serve.ts#L214)","author":{"url":"https://github.com/eib","@type":"Person","name":"eib"},"datePublished":"2018-02-15T20:50:46.000Z","interactionStatistic":{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":"https://schema.org/CommentAction","userInteractionCount":5},"url":"https://github.com/9640/angular-cli/issues/9640"}