// the find
TheLarkInn/artsy-webpack-tour
Annotations on webpack source code in a pseudo-guided fashion.
A 2018 annotated walkthrough of webpack 2 internals, created by a webpack maintainer. It traces the compilation lifecycle from WebpackOptionsApply through Compiler, Compilation, NormalModuleFactory, and NormalModule using hand-annotated screenshots of the actual source. For developers who wanted to understand webpack well enough to write plugins or contribute to it.
Written by someone who actually works on webpack, so the annotations call out non-obvious design decisions rather than just restating what the code says. The walkthrough follows a real execution path rather than jumping around, which makes it easier to build a mental model of the call stack. Text transcripts of each image were added later, making the content searchable.
It's frozen at webpack 2.2.1 — webpack is now at v5 and the internals have changed substantially, so anything you learn here may actively mislead you about the current codebase. The content lives entirely in annotated PNG screenshots, which means you can't copy code snippets or follow links to source. The repo has been dead since 2018 with no indication it will be updated.