Why webpack-dev-middleware provides `publicPath` configuration?

Question

From the readme of webpack-dev-middleware, there is a publicPath configuration:

publicPath: "/assets/",
// public path to bind the middleware to
// use the same as in webpack

But I'm not sure why there is such a configuration since there is already a same one in webpack.config.js

Answer 1

I think it is necessary for Hot Module Replacement to know where to load the hot update chunks.