build.gradle

// This application is built in node.js, and there is a plugin for it in Gradle that does
// a lot of the work for us as far as dealing with node.js builds. We're calling in that
// plugin here
plugins {
  id "com.moowork.node" version "1.2.0"
}

// We've also got to confgure the plugin a little bit. This line will instruct the node plugin
// to download and install node.js and npm locally, for this particular project. It ensures that
// those are installed during the build, but not system-wide, just within this directory.
node {
  download = true
}

// Whenever we call the build task (it's a task called build) which will run any and all
// other tasks that are required to actually call the build "built."
task build

// Create a task that is the Zip type
    task zip(type: Zip) {
// Find the files at . (dot) which means "right here in the root of the directory"
              from ('.') {
// Grab all of the files in the root directory, not the files AND subdirectories
// with their files, just the files sitting right in the root directory.
                  include "*"
// These next few lines have double asterisks, which means EVERYTHING. For each line, we want to grab the
// directory that we've named, and everything (files and subdirectories) below it in the file tree.
                  include "bin/**"
                  include "data/**"
                  include "node_modules/**"
                  include "public/**"
                  include "routes/**"
                  include "views/**"
              }
// This is the destination where the zip file is going to land. We're putting it in a directory names dist,
// which is going to be a subdirectory of the root directory.
              destinationDir(file("dist"))
// We're naming the zip file itself. When we're done, there should be a trainSchedule.zip sitting in the ./dist
// directory.
              baseName "trainSchedule"
          }

// This will make the build task call on the zip task. If zip doesn't finish, the build fails.
          build.dependsOn zip
// Here, we want to make sure our zip task runs after npm_build    
          zip.dependsOn npm_build

// All we need to do, in order for this build to actually run, is to call some of the tasks
// built in to the node.js and npm plugins. We're going to call them here.
build.dependsOn npm_build
npm_build.dependsOn npmInstall
npm_test.dependsOn npmInstall