building for production with a custom server

[samuelstroschein]

I am trying to build a production build with VPS and express. The boilerplate provides an example that differs from vite's build for production guide. The latter does not work.

Context

The boilerplate uses ts-node to serve the production build. I have some polyfill issues that I am trying to solve by using vite to bundle my server and run a simple node ./dist/server/main.js. Regardless of ts-node being an issue, I expected vite's build for production to work with VPS.

Problem

Building for production as provided in vite's documentation does not work. Vite recommends two build scripts, one for the client and one for the server.

{
  "scripts": {
    "dev": "node server",
    "build:client": "vite build --outDir dist/client",
    "build:server": "vite build --outDir dist/server --ssr src/entry-server.js"
  }
}

Defining the build:server script fails with VPS and disableAutoFullBuild set to false fails though:

[@brillout/vite-plugin-import-build:vite-plugin-ssr] `dist/server/pageFiles.js` is missing: make sure your Rollup config doesn't change the name of the file `pageFiles.js` 

The same problem applies to telefunc, if telefunc is passed into the plugins:

[telefunc:buildConfig:assert] [telefunc@0.1.40][Wrong Usage] You seem to be using a tool that conflicts with Telefunc. Reach out to a Telefunc maintainer. (Info for maintainer: couldn't find Telefunc's Rollup input entry.)

Questions

1. Should building for production according to vite's docs work with VPS in the first place?
2. How does the boilerplate example serve work?
   Does vps render look up the files in dist/client/* via serve?
   What happens with all the files in dist/server/*?

[brillout]

You may want to give https://github.com/cyco130/vavite a try.

Also: https://github.com/hattipjs/hattip/tree/main/examples/vavite/vite-plugin-ssr. HatTip is a more edgy, but really cool :-).

FYI https://vite-plugin-ssr.com/disableAutoFullBuild.

[brillout]

It's probably due to --outDir dist/server. Also using VPS with a server entry --ssr src/entry-server.js is something I never tried.

[brillout]

I did a bit of digging. So --outDir dist/server isn't the problem. The culprit is --ssr src/entry-server.js. It seems like Vite is erasing all other entries. So it's more of a Vite bug. It's a bummer, because --ssr src/entry-server.js is actually a good idea (I could have made it work without the need to set disableAutoFullBuild).

[samuelstroschein]

That is a bummer. The --ssr flag seemed like a natural way to provide the entry point for the server.

I struggle to understand what happens when vite-plugin-ssr is used with serv. Is the compiled output of /dist/server used at all in the boilerplate examples?

[samuelstroschein]

Building for production is .... complicated.

Setting disableAutoFullBuild to true leads to the VPS and telefunc crashes during the build step "can't find dist/server/*".

Setting disableAutoFullBuild to false and using vite's --ssr flag after the client (aka full build has finished) leads to

[vite-plugin-ssr@0.4.46][Warning] The CLI call `$ vite build --ssr` is superfluous since `$ vite build` also builds the server-side. If you want two separate build steps then use https://vite-plugin-ssr.com/disableAutoFullBuild or use Vite's `build()` API.

There seems to be no none-hacky way to bundle the server entry with vite and vite-plugin-ssr

[brillout]

I struggle to understand what happens when vite-plugin-ssr is used with serv. Is the compiled output of /dist/server used at all in the boilerplate examples?

#403

There seems to be no none-hacky way to bundle the server entry with vite and vite-plugin-ssr

Yes. The recommendation so far is to use vavite or HatTip. I agree a simpler solution would be nice. I just created a ticket for that #562.

Building for production is .... complicated.

I agree it should be easier.