A Grunt task with no dependencies to serve static files (optionally set port and staticBasePath: server: { port: 3300, staticBasePath: './build' })

Gruntfile.js

module.exports = function(grunt) {
    var config = {
        watch: {},
        server: {}
    };  
    grunt.initConfig(config);
    grunt.loadNpmTasks('grunt-contrib-watch');
    grunt.loadTasks('tasks');
    grunt.registerTask('default', ['server', 'watch']);
};

server.js

module.exports = function(grunt) {

    var fs = require('fs');  
    var path = require('path');  
    var http = require('http');

    grunt.registerTask('server', 'static file development server', function(){

        //set default params if not configured in Gruntfile
        var port = grunt.config.get('server.port') || 3000;
        var staticBasePath = grunt.config.get('server.base') || './';

        //create the server
        var httpServer = http.createServer(function(req, res) {  

            var filePath, stream;

            //serve index.htm
            if(req.url === '/') { 
                req.url = 'index.html';
            }

            //get the file path
            filePath = path.join(path.resolve(staticBasePath), req.url);
            //create a read stream
            stream = fs.createReadStream(filePath);

            // handle errors
            stream.on('error', function(error) {
                res.writeHead(404, 'Not Found');
                res.end();
            });

            // file is ok
            res.statusCode = 200;
            //attach the file stream to the response
            stream.pipe(res);
        
        });

        httpServer.listen(port, function(){
            console.log('listening on port http://localhost:' + port);
        });

        return httpServer;

    });
};