Everytime I run gulp anything, I get a assertion error. - Task function must be specified

Question

Gulp 4.0 has changed the way that tasks should be defined if the task depends on another task to execute. The list parameter has been deprecated.

An example from your gulpfile.js would be:

// Starts a BrowerSync instance
gulp.task('server', ['build'], function(){
  browser.init({server: './_site', port: port});
});

Instead of the list parameter they have introduced gulp.series() and gulp.parallel().

This task should be changed to something like this:

// Starts a BrowerSync instance
gulp.task('server', gulp.series('build', function(){
  browser.init({server: './_site', port: port});
}));

I'm not an expert in this. You can see a more robust example in the gulp documentation for running tasks in series or these following excellent blog posts by Jhey Thompkins and Stefan Baumgartner

https://codeburst.io/switching-to-gulp-4-0-271ae63530c0

https://fettblog.eu/gulp-4-parallel-and-series/

Try replacing your last line of gulpfile.js

gulp.task('default', ['server', 'watch']);

with

gulp.task('default', gulp.series('server', 'watch'));

Lower your gulp version in package.json file to 3.9.1-

"gulp": "^3.9.1",

You don't need to downgrade your gulp from gulp 4. Use gulp.series() to combine multiple tasks. At first install gulp globally with

npm install --global gulp-cli

and then install locally on your working directory with

npm install --save-dev gulp

see details here

Example:

package.json

{
  "name": "gulp-test",
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "description": "",
  "main": "index.js",
  "scripts": {
    "test": "echo \"Error: no test specified\" && exit 1"
  },
  "author": "",
  "license": "ISC",
  "devDependencies": {
    "browser-sync": "^2.26.3",
    "gulp": "^4.0.0",
    "gulp-sass": "^4.0.2"
  },
  "dependencies": {
    "bootstrap": "^4.3.1",
    "jquery": "^3.3.1",
    "popper.js": "^1.14.7"
  }
}

gulpfile.js

var gulp = require("gulp");
var sass = require('gulp-sass');
var browserSync = require('browser-sync').create();

// Specific Task
function js() {
    return gulp
    .src(['node_modules/bootstrap/dist/js/bootstrap.min.js', 'node_modules/jquery/dist/jquery.min.js', 'node_modules/popper.js/dist/umd/popper.min.js'])
    .pipe(gulp.dest('src/js'))
    .pipe(browserSync.stream());
}
gulp.task(js);

// Specific Task
function gulpSass() {
    return gulp
    .src(['src/scss/*.scss'])
    .pipe(sass())
    .pipe(gulp.dest('src/css'))
    .pipe(browserSync.stream());
}
gulp.task(gulpSass);

// Run multiple tasks
gulp.task('start', gulp.series(js, gulpSass));

Run gulp start to fire multiple tasks & run gulp js or gulp gulpSass for specific task.

https://fettblog.eu/gulp-4-parallel-and-series/

Because gulp.task(name, deps, func) was replaced by gulp.task(name, gulp.{series|parallel}(deps, func)).

You are using the latest version of gulp but older code. Modify the code or downgrade.

I get the same error when using Gulp. The solution is to switch to Gulp version 3.9.1, both for the local version and the CLI version.

sudo npm install -g [email protected]

Run in the project's folder

npm install [email protected]

The problem is that you are using gulp 4 and the syntax in gulfile.js is of gulp 3. So either downgrade your gulp to 3.x.x or make use of gulp 4 syntaxes.

Syntax Gulp 3:

gulp.task('default', ['sass'], function() {....} );

Syntax Gulp 4:

gulp.task('default', gulp.series(sass), function() {....} );

You can read more about gulp and gulp tasks on: https://medium.com/@sudoanushil/how-to-write-gulp-tasks-ce1b1b7a7e81