CODEWITHSUNDEEP
npm-installnetlify
derpedy-doo
derpedy-doo

Reputation: 3050

No node_modules from netlify deploy

I've got continuous deployment setup with Netlify and a git repo but so far no matter what I do, Netlify isn't npm-installing anything. There's no node_modules folder when I download a zip of the deploy, my site can't access node_modules, it's just not there. I've started with a random npm package (lodash) to try to get it to install but I've got nothing so far.

Netlify says that it automatically runs npm install. I've tried having no build commands and I've tried adding npm install as a build command with no results from either.

package.json:

{
  "name": "netlify-test",
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "description": "stuff",
  "main": "index.js",
  "scripts": {
    "test": "echo \"Error: no test specified\" && exit 1"
  },
  "repository": {
    "type": "git",
    "url": "git+https://github.com/electrovir/netlify-test.git"
  },
  "author": "electrovir",
  "license": "MIT",
  "bugs": {
    "url": "https://github.com/electrovir/netlify-test/issues"
  },
  "homepage": "https://github.com/electrovir/netlify-test#readme",
  "dependencies": {
    "lodash": "^4.17.11"
  }
}

HTML:

<!doctype html>
<html>

<head>
    <title>
        hi
    </title>
    <script src="node_modules/lodash/_apply.js"></script>
</head>

<body>
    Why can't this find node_modules??
</body>

</html>

Upvotes: 7

Views: 7213

Answers (2)

derpedy-doo
derpedy-doo

Reputation: 3050

It took a while to figure this out but I discovered that Netlify does npm install into your repo root or Base directory when you have a package.json. This can be seen by changing the Build command to something like ls and reading the deploy console output (there will be a node_modules folder listed).

However, at some point after running the Build command and before deploying, this node_modules is deleted. Hence, if you use something similar to the following as a Build command, node_modules can be copied to your Publish directory:

rm -rf dist && mkdir dist && rsync -rv * dist --exclude ./dist

This copies the Base directory contents into dist, which I have set as my Publish directory, ignoring ./dist itself (it can't be copied into itself). It'd be even better if this were added as an npm script in package.json with npm run <script name> for your Build command.

Note that Base directory, Build command, and Publish directory are all under Deploys > Deploy settings or Settings > Build & deploy in Netlify.

Thanks to lastmjs for help with figuring this out.

Upvotes: 7

fool
fool

Reputation: 3189

It would be odd if node_modules WERE there. Netlify's continuous deployment does run npm install for you, if and only if there is a package.json in the root of your repository (or instead in the base directory if you set one in netlify.toml. However, it also uses a custom npm directory that is outside of the deployment directory (see how it is setup here: https://github.com/netlify/build-image/blob/master/run-build-functions.sh#L34), since deploying your node_modules shouldn't be needed for a static site at browse time - only at build time.

The intended path for a Netlify deploy is:

  1. you have your dependency manager configuration checked into your git repo at the root of the repo (if no base directory is set in the UI or in the toml file) or in the base directory if set. This could be any/all of Gemfile.lock, package.json, yarn.lock, or requirements.txt as explained in this article about the build settings at Netlify
  2. you do not store your node_modules in the repo. Many of those will be specific to the architecture of the build environment - and your local machine is almost certainly different than Netlify's. You'll want those generated at build time.
  3. your build is intended to USE those modules DURING BUILD. So you use for instance dotenv to read your .env file while building, or you use gulp-cli to process your Gulpfile.js
  4. your build completes, and you've used all the modules during build to generate standalone html/js/css/images, so you're done with them - your static html and other assets are generated in your publish directory, where the build process has intentionally not put your node modules, and thus they are not deployed. Your static website should not need the modules at runtime, so deploying the (thousands!) of files in there is not efficient or needed.

You could have a situation that requires some/one of them - e.g. a function or you could need a file from one of them even on your static site - and that's fine, feel free to copy it into the publish directory explicitly. But that is not the norm :)

Upvotes: 3

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