Start your MAMP dev server with Grunt

I just started a new project that requires a PHP server, but the built-in PHP server used by grunt-php is not beefy enough. Instead, I need to run the MAMP server in order to test it.

To get around this, I installed the excellent grunt-exec plugin which allows Grunt to run arbitrary commands. Add these tasks to your Gruntfile to allow you to start and stop the MAMP server:

exec: {
      serverup: {
        command: '/Applications/MAMP/bin/start.sh'
      },
      serverdown: {
        command: '/Applications/MAMP/bin/stop.sh'
      }
}

Now, if you have a grunt task which runs watch, all you need to do is add serverup before watch and serverdown after it. The server will be started before Grunt begins the watch. It will be taken back down after you exit the watch task.