March 10, 2023 - Updated Content Here : https://dev.to/aaronksaunders/how-to-create-a-mobile-app-using-vite-vue-and-ionic-capacitor-in-8-minutes-including-explanation-1c4g

Getting Live Reload To Work In Your Vite Ionic Project

I like to use ViteJS in my Ionic Framework Projects because is is extremely fast. In some situations there is a need for using the Capacitor Live Reload ability you normally get from Ionic Framework Capacitor Projects; this is helpful with the developer experience when working on the physical device.

Trying the normal ionic cli commands will not work, but I have outlined an approach below that will work for you.

I don't use Capacitor Live Reload that often, but this is a manual approach to get it going with the Vite in ReactJS or VueJS project. I provide sample projects linked below

First Start Your Server

aaronksaunders@Aarons-14MacBookProM1Pro my-react-app % npm run dev

> my-react-app@0.0.0 dev
> vite


  VITE v3.0.6  ready in 359 ms

  ➜  Local:   http://127.0.0.1:5173/
  ➜  Network: use --host to expose
12:57:47 AM [vite] hmr update /src/App.tsx

Then modify capacitor.config.ts using the address the server is running on from the command above

const config: CapacitorConfig = {
  appId: 'my.react.app',
  appName: 'my-react-app',
  webDir: 'dist',
  bundledWebRuntime: false,
  server : {
    "url" : "http://127.0.0.1:5173/"  //<= use address the server is running on locally
  }
};

And finally deploy your app to the device

aaronksaunders@Aarons-14MacBookProM1Pro my-react-app % npx cap run ios --external  --target=73CE91C9-4855-496B-9481-CA486652E9D7
✔ Copying web assets from dist to ios/App/App/public in 12.83ms
✔ Creating capacitor.config.json in ios/App/App in 1.35ms
✔ copy ios in 25.05ms
✔ Updating iOS plugins in 1.96ms
[info] Found 4 Capacitor plugins for ios:
       @capacitor/app@4.0.1
       @capacitor/haptics@4.0.1
       @capacitor/keyboard@4.0.1
       @capacitor/status-bar@4.0.1
✔ Updating iOS native dependencies with pod install in 2.53s
✔ update ios in 2.56s
✔ Running xcodebuild in 3.20s
✔ Deploying App.app to 73CE91C9-4855-496B-9481-CA486652E9D7 in 1.51s
aaronksaunders@Aarons-14MacBookProM1Pro my-react-app % 

Now your mobile app is pointing to the local server running and you basically have live-reload working. I am certain there is another approach, but like I said I don't use it often enough. Hopefully, this gets you moving

REMEMBER
remove the edit to the capacitor.config.ts before deploying to production otherwise the app will be looking for the local server to run the app !!

Here Are Some Ionic Capacitor Vite Templates

These templates have been tested on IOS and Android and work with the latest version of Ionic as of the date of this post.

REACTJS

aaronksaunders@Aarons-14MacBookProM1Pro my-react-app % npm run dev

> my-react-app@0.0.0 dev
> vite


  VITE v3.0.6  ready in 359 ms

  ➜  Local:   http://127.0.0.1:5173/
  ➜  Network: use --host to expose
12:57:47 AM [vite] hmr update /src/App.tsx

const config: CapacitorConfig = {
  appId: 'my.react.app',
  appName: 'my-react-app',
  webDir: 'dist',
  bundledWebRuntime: false,
  server : {
    "url" : "http://127.0.0.1:5173/"  //<= use address the server is running on locally
  }
};

aaronksaunders@Aarons-14MacBookProM1Pro my-react-app % npx cap run ios --external  --target=73CE91C9-4855-496B-9481-CA486652E9D7
✔ Copying web

VUEJS

aaronksaunders@Aarons-14MacBookProM1Pro my-react-app % npm run dev

> my-react-app@0.0.0 dev
> vite


  VITE v3.0.6  ready in 359 ms

  ➜  Local:   http://127.0.0.1:5173/
  ➜  Network: use --host to expose
12:57:47 AM [vite] hmr update /src/App.tsx

const config: CapacitorConfig = {
  appId: 'my.react.app',
  appName: 'my-react-app',
  webDir: 'dist',
  bundledWebRuntime: false,
  server : {
    "url" : "http://127.0.0.1:5173/"  //<= use address the server is running on locally
  }
};

aaronksaunders@Aarons-14MacBookProM1Pro my-react-app