This project is an experiment built in the context of the Node.js SEA project, which aims to find a way to distribute Node.js packages as single executable archives.
For this project to work, you must use Node.js 18.11+.
Install the sea binary globally:
npm install -g node-sea
Or to your project via:
yarn add node-sea
Calling the sea binary will generate a single JS file (a.cjs by default, although this name can be changed with -o,--output) which, when run on the CLI, will call the binary selected via the -b,--binary option and, when required, will re-export the exports from the module selected via the -m,--main option.
In order to set the content of the binary you can mix the -i,--input flag, which takes a tgz to use as initial content, and the -c,--command flag, which runs a given command on the content to generate any extraneous files (for example, -i ./pkg.tgz -c 'yarn install' would store both ./pkg.tgz and its dependencies).
Packing a package:
yarn sea -c 'yarn init -y && yarn add prettier' -b prettier -m prettier
Packing a couple of packages together:
yarn sea -c 'yarn init -y && yarn add webpack webpack-cli' -b webpack-cli -m webpack
Packing a tgz:
wget https://registry.yarnpkg.com/typescript/-/typescript-4.8.3.tgz
yarn sea -i ./typescript-4.8.3.tgz -b ./:tsc
Packing a tgz after installing its dependencies:
wget https://registry.yarnpkg.com/http-server/-/http-server-14.1.1.tgz
yarn sea -i ./http-server-14.1.1.tgz -c 'yarn install' -b ./
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Workers will only work once nodejs/node#44732 is merged; for instance, running Webpack from a SEA application will crash because it starts a worker that doesn't know how to access the virtual files.
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Native modules aren't supported yet; I want to implement them by putting them aside the generated file and replacing them by symlinks within the packed application.