Gatsby Could Use a *Separate* (pre-gatsby-node.js) Way to Setup WebPack

[machineghost]

Summary

Right now you can only configure Webpack from within gatsby-node.js. But let's say you want to use some Webpack feature in that file: it's impossible.

Basic example

For instance, let's say you want something extremely basic. Instead of wrapping a GraphQL query with:

# queryFile.js
export default `*my query*`

and putting it into a .js file, you'd like to just be able to have a raw query string file:

# queryFile.gql
*my query*

Webpack has a raw loader that let's you do exactly that (import a file's contents as a string) ... but it doesn't work with Gatsby, or at least not in gatsby-node.js itself. Why? Because it runs the imports in that file before that webpack config is ever set.

Motivation

If I could just define the loader in some sort of gatsby-webpack.js file, somehow, then that file could get run beforehand. This would allow any webpack config that anyone might ever want (not just my loader, but any other loader, any path changes, etc.) to apply within the gatsby files (like gatsby-node).