Doesn't work with yarn workspaces by default

[bryzaguy]

I have a monorepo which is essentially a repository with many npm packages in it and I just started using yarn workspaces which hoists all dependencies to the root of the repository. I realized that all my node_modules were getting included because they were now located in a node_modules folder two parents up. So I had to switch to externals: /node_modules/

[alexrqs]

I'm having the same issue so that PR witth moduleDirs will be awesome, I just don't know how @barraq resolved the issue with 2 node_modules folders because when you are using lerna, the folders inside packages/ will have their own node_modules with the symlinks created by lerna and other node packages will be on the root, that makes 2 node_modules folder to inspect.
This is valid with workspaces only, if you don't use workspaces all is good but for my particular case where I'm using a monorepo full of react components and on the root folder a storybook installation to preview the components, if I don't use workspaces react gets repeated and doesn't work so thats why the approach with webpack-node-externals is important.
right now it kinda works with

externals: [/^[a-z\-0-9]+$/],

but is not the most optimal way as @bryzaguy says

[barraq]

@alexrqs actually I am using this patch for our monorepo at Freeletics. I simply have this configuration:

externals: [nodeExternals({
  modulesDirs: ['node_modules', path.resolve(__dirname, '../../node_modules')],
})],

and it works like a charm ;) actually that was the reason of the patch.

[chadly]

@barraq you can accomplish the same thing without any code changes to this package by just including multiple instances:

externals: [
  nodeExternals(),
  nodeExternals({
    modulesDir: path.resolve(__dirname, '../../node_modules')
})],

[atdixon]

+1

Ideally the default modulesDir behavior would be to walk the workspace to its root (consulting all node_modules directories from package to root); thus, webpack-node-externals would work out of the box for monorepos.

There are a few issues with the current solutio of hard-coding module dirs:

• It is brittle (ie, breaks if a package is moved/copied etc within the monorepo).
• Options (eg whitelist) have to be repeated for each declaration.
• Etc.

Also, node itself seems to resolve from node_modules up the directory tree. (I see it do so when I run node scripts that require hoisted libs.) Webpack and other libraries, similarly. So this would be idiomatic, no? If so, perhaps there's a direct/normalized library/facility for doing this walk that could be leveraged.

[sandangel]

hi, may I ask the current state of this issue? any update?

[alfonsolamadrid]

In case somebody else is having trouble when using lerna or yarn_workspace, I've come across this answer in s.o..

It turns out, webpack-node-externals can "Read the modules from the package.json file instead of the node_modules folder".

By obtaining the dependencies via the package.json instead of depending on what's actually inside the node_modules dir, it wouldn't matter if the actual node modules are scoped out of the package when working as with a monorepo with "Yarn Workspaces" or "lerna".

Just my two cents (honest and perhaps naive question) wouldn't this be better if defaulted to true?

e.g. options.modulesFromFile (=true)

[sibelius]

how can I whitelist webpack/hot/poll?1000 in a monorepo setup?

[shaunlmason]

how can I whitelist webpack/hot/poll?1000 in a monorepo setup?

Try:

 externals: [
     nodeExternals({
         modulesDir: path.resolve(__dirname, './node_modules'),
         whitelist: ['webpack/hot/poll?1000']
     }),
     nodeExternals({
         modulesDir: path.resolve(__dirname, '../../node_modules'),
         whitelist: ['webpack/hot/poll?1000']
     })
 ],

[moshest]

If you have many packages and you want to query them all, use this:

import glob from 'glob';

const externals = glob
    .sync('*/node_modules/', { absolute: true, cwd: __dirname })
    .map((modulesDir) => nodeExternals({ modulesDir }));

[liady]

In version 2, you can now specify additionalModuleDirs in the options.