title: Node - hackathon starter cannot load static files?
body: <p>I followed the instructions in <a href="https://github.com/sahat/hackathon-starter" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://github.com/sahat/hackathon-starter</a> to kickstart a user authentication system. The site runs on localhost and editing the html files modifies the page. However, I want to add and modify some existing css for the page, but it doesn't seem to load any changes I make in the <code>public</code> folder.</p>
  
  <p>In app.js, static files are set by:</p>
  
  <pre><code>app.use(sass({
    src: path.join(__dirname, 'public'),
    dest: path.join(__dirname, 'public')
  }));
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>and    </p>
  
  <p><code>app.use(express.static(path.join(__dirname, 'public'), { maxAge: 31557600000 }));</code></p>
  
  <p>when I do <code>inspect element</code> on the result page served from localhost, the sources for <code>localhost:8080</code> contains the same files with same code, even though I modified these files in the <code>public</code> folder in my local directory. </p>
  
  <p>I tried: </p>
  
  <ul>
  <li>Add a new folder and css file in <code>public/css</code> to modify some html element</li>
  <li>Modify the existing main.css file in <code>public/css</code></li>
  <li>deleting the whole public folder </li>
  <li>comment out <code>link(rel='stylesheet', href='/css/main.css')</code> in <code>views/partials/layout.pug</code>, which does change the webpage(took out all styling elements, which makes sense)</li>
  </ul>
  
  <p>I'm suspecting it's loading its public folder from somewhere, but I don't know how and where. </p>