# Clojure Ring Hot Reloading HTML in the Browser
In some cases when you're developing a full-stack app you want to be able to refresh your website when static assets change automatically. For example HTML templates or CSS files.
There's a nice little utility tool [ring-refresh](https://clojars.org/ring-refresh) to achieve just that.
Here's an example app that uses [Selmer](https://github.com/yogthos/Selmer) templates to render HTML. During development we want the browser to update to have a faster feedback loop in the browser.
Here's a small example of how this works!
---
Add the dependencies.
```clojure
{:paths ["src" "resources"]
:deps {org.clojure/clojure {:mvn/version "1.11.1"}
ring/ring-core {:mvn/version "1.6.3"}
ring/ring-jetty-adapter {:mvn/version "1.6.3"}
selmer/selmer {:mvn/version "1.12.59"}
metosin/reitit {:mvn/version "0.7.0-alpha5"}
ring-refresh/ring-refresh {:mvn/version "0.1.3"}}}
```
Create a template file `resources/templates/layout.html`. And remember to add the `` tag because the `ring-refresh` will depend on that having in place already. If that's missing the reload will not work because the middleware uses a regex to recognize where to inject the hot reload script. This took me a moment to realize so just a heads up.
```xml
hello {{name}}
{% for item in items %}
- {{item|capitalize}}
{% endfor %}
```
And here's the app. Notice the `selmer.parser/ache-off!` call if you are using extended templates.
> When rendering files Selmer will cache the compiled template. A recompile will be triggered if the last modified timestamp of the file changes. Note that changes in files referenced by the template **will not** trigger a recompile. This means that if your template extends or includes other templates you must touch the file that's being rendered for changes to take effect.
>
> Alternatively you can turn caching on and off using `(selmer.parser/cache-on!)` and `(selmer.parser/cache-off!)` respectively.
>
> [https://github.com/yogthos/Selmer#important](https://github.com/yogthos/Selmer#important)
```clojure
(ns acme.app
(:require [selmer.parser :as selmer]
[ring.middleware.refresh :as refresh]
[ring.middleware.params]
[ring.adapter.jetty :as jetty])
(:gen-class))
(selmer.parser/cache-off!)
(defn app [_request]
{:status 200
:headers {"Content-Type" "text/html"}
:body (selmer/render-file "templates/layout.html"
{:name "World"
:items ["one" "two" "three" "four"]})})
(defonce server (atom nil))
(defn start! []
(reset! server
(jetty/run-jetty (refresh/wrap-refresh #'app)
{:port 8080 :join? false})))
(comment
(.stop @server)
(start!))
```
Now when you update your templates the browser should refresh the page automatically and save you a bunch of time and nerves. I hope you found this useful!