How do I use grunt plugins programmatically?

Question

I'd like to use the grunt-contrib-watch plugin as well as others in one of my own Node.js projects. The only problem is I can't figure out how to interact with them programmatically. Here's an example:

grunt.config.init({
  jshint: {
    all: ['asourcefile.js']
  }
});

grunt.loadNpmTasks('grunt-contrib-jshint');

grunt.task.run('jshint');

Grunt loads the jshint plugin ok and it seems like it can find my task (using a made up name throws an error), it just doesn't seem to actually execute it.

Where am I going wrong and is this even the best way to interact with a grunt plugin programmatically?

Answer 1

A lot of gruntplugins are just wrappers around existing Node.js libraries. JSHint's, for example . If you're writing a Node.js app, don't use the grunt wrappers:

var jshint = require('jshint');
// ...