Migrations that use ESM format can't run via the migrations API

[GuyAtFinhaven]

Environment

Knex version: latest
Database + version: PostgreSQL latest
OS: linux

Bug

1. When trying to run knex.migrate() (programmatically using migrations API NOT via CLI ) on migrations that use ES6 ESM import/export (migrations generated with -x ts) you get "Uncaught SyntaxError: Cannot use import statement outside a module" (This is not a Typescript issue but a ES6 ESM issue ). These migrations do work in the CLI.

2. "Uncaught SyntaxError: Cannot use import statement outside a module"

Thank you

[atlanteh]

Any solution or workaround on this?

[Naddiseo]

Usually "Uncaught SyntaxError: Cannot use import statement outside a module" means you'll need "type": "module" in your package.json, or change your migration file extensions to .mjs

[jukkaleh-atoz]

Happened to stumble on this while testing migration to vitest. This was a dealbreaker so stayed with jest

Usually "Uncaught SyntaxError: Cannot use import statement outside a module" means you'll need "type": "module" in your package.json, or change your migration file extensions to .mjs

Does not work with vitest and typescript. After changing "type": "module" error changes from Cannot use import statement to unknown file extension .ts.

[Naddiseo]

@jukkaleh-atoz if you're using ts (with inline types) AND modules, you'll need to pass everything through either babel or ts-node. I'm not sure how to do that. However, if you're using "typescript" where you aren't using the types (or using @type comments) you can change the file extension to .mjs or .js depending on you package "type"

[jukkaleh-atoz]

@Naddiseo transpiler worked when package.json type was not set to module. I was using vitest to with babel preset so that might have something to with it

you can change the file extension to .mjs or .js
Is not a thing that typescript project can do. Only extensions are .ts or .tsx

[cpf-hse]

Happened to stumble on this while testing migration to vitest. This was a dealbreaker so stayed with jest

Usually "Uncaught SyntaxError: Cannot use import statement outside a module" means you'll need "type": "module" in your package.json, or change your migration file extensions to .mjs

Does not work with vitest and typescript. After changing "type": "module" error changes from Cannot use import statement to unknown file extension .ts.

Same problem here. Now all my tests run on vitest except my db integration tests 😣

[flodlc]

I have same issues, here is an alternative with good typescript support.
I suggest to use knex as the db client and pg-mate as the migrations orchestrator:
https://github.com/flodlc/pg-mate

[Naddiseo]

You also might be able to get away running the process with NODE_OPTIONS='--loader ts-node/esm'

For CLI migrations (not what OP wanted) I've got typescript ESM migrations working here and you might be able to adapt it to work with programmatic migrations

[javierguzman]

Another one here with the same problem. I can run migrations from the CLI, however, if I call knex migrations from the test it throws:

/blabla/20230726133056_initial_creation.ts:1 seems to be an ES Module but shipped in a CommonJS package. To fix this issue, change the file extension to .mjs or add "type": "module" in your package.json.

If I do that then the project starts breaking down. I am going to give Jest a try because I am using vitest.

[Seiikatsu]

Similar issue here: we replaced our testing framework node-tap with vitest.
All tests work without problems except our db integration tests, they all fail with:

Module /[.......]/knex/migrations/20230802111830_v1-init.ts:1 seems to be an ES Module but shipped in a CommonJS package. To fix this issue, change the file extension to .mjs or add "type": "module" in your package.json.

Has anyone found a solution yet?

[mattapet]

When running migrations programatically (as part of integration test setup) we ended up switching from knex.migrate() to simply spawning a CLI version that does the job (we use vitest)

beforeAll(async () => {
  await new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
    const p = spawn('yarn', ['knex', 'migrate:latest', '--env', 'local']);
    p.on('close', resolve);
    p.on('error', reject);
  });
});