Node externals from a package in an electron app

[karolis-sh]

Hey there!

I'm trying to use snowpack for electron app development and I'm stuck on an issue. I'm having difficulties with node externals. I have declared all externals in the snowpack config and I can easily use them in my source code just by using common js import syntax:

const path = require("path");
const file = path.join(process.cwd(), "snowpack.config.js");

But if a package from node_modules uses node external, then the external doesn't get treated as an external - const fs = require("fs"); is converted to import fs from 'fs'; and breaks:

Minimal example https://github.com/karolis-sh/issue-snowpack-externals/blob/main/packages/snowpack-app/renderer/index.js

---

After some trial and error understood what was happening. Can get it working with commonjs syntax, but I'm losing typings:

/**
 * 1) Breaks with:
 *
 * Uncaught TypeError: Failed to resolve module specifier "fs". Relative references must start with either "/", "./", or "../".
 */
import { readFileVerbose } from "my-node-package";

/**
 * 2) Doesn't break, but no typings in TypeScript
 */
const { readFileVerbose } = require("my-node-package");

[melissamcewen]

Hi @karolis-sh , thanks for reporting. Going to pass this on to the other maintainers to investigate as a potential bug.

[karolis-sh]

This doesn't seem to be fixed in the latest version (3.3.5), is there a corresponding issue I could track the progress?

[beorn]

@melissamcewen Is there any update on this?

It's rather important to be able to import native modules in node/electron, and the below workaround often isn't possible (since the native module might be imported by some other module you don't control).

[FunkMonkey]

There is at least a solution to the Typescript Issue:

import type fsType from 'fs';
const fs = require('fs') as typeof fsType;

But otherwise I'm also interested in a solution to the original problem of import.