Is there a way to refresh static files without server restart?

To determine if a file has changed, you can use fs.watch from the built-in fs module. It works like this: fs.watch('filename_or_directory', function(event, file) {}) . The callback's first parameter is "event", a string which is either "rename" or "change", depending on what type of change happened. The second parameter is the filename that changed.

For the client to automatically know that a change has occurred on the server is a bit more complex. There needs to be some form of communication with the server; you can do this with polling or with web sockets. If you go the socket route, you can use a library like socket.io or ws to establish a connection between server and client; when the server notices a change in a file from fs.watch, it can broadcast that change as a JSON "event object" to all clients, which can then receive the message and determine how to proceed (reload the current page, request updated data via AJAX, ignore it because it's an unrelated file, etc.).

If you go the polling route, you don't need any web socket libraries. You'd just keep track of the timestamp of each change from fs.watch in an array, then set up a route like /api/getChanges or something. You have the client, at regular intervals, post the timestamp of the last client update to that route, and the server can respond with all change objects in the array after that time.

Note: Express doesn't need to know that a file has changed. It will re-read files as they're requested. It's the client that needs to know when to refresh.

Fixed this way:

app.use(express.static('public’, {etag: false}))