Webpack compile generating loads of warnings about zowe imperative module

[JWaters02]

Hi,

I am trying to setup webpack on my org's internal vscode extension which uses the zowe node SDKs and zowe explorer API, to reduce extension install size and reduce load times.

However, I am getting a bunch of warnings about @zowe/imperative node module which vs code docs says to take seriously, for example:

WARNING in ./node_modules/@zowe/imperative/lib/config/src/ConfigAutoStore.js 104:32-59
Critical dependency: the request of a dependency is an expression
 @ ./node_modules/@zowe/imperative/lib/config/src/ProfileInfo.js 39:26-54
 @ ./node_modules/@zowe/imperative/lib/config/index.js 35:13-41
 @ ./node_modules/@zowe/imperative/lib/index.js 28:13-32
 @ ./node_modules/@zowe/zowe-explorer-api/lib/index.js 51:34-61
 @ ./src/panels/BasePanel.ts 7:28-62
 @ ./src/panels/CompilePanel.ts 4:20-42
 @ ./src/extension.ts 6:23-55

WARNING in ./node_modules/yargs/index.cjs 12:39-46
Critical dependency: require function is used in a way in which dependencies cannot be statically extracted
 @ ./node_modules/@zowe/imperative/lib/imperative/src/Imperative.js 29:14-30
 @ ./node_modules/@zowe/imperative/lib/imperative/index.js 38:13-40
 @ ./node_modules/@zowe/imperative/lib/index.js 34:13-36
 @ ./node_modules/@zowe/zowe-explorer-api/lib/index.js 51:34-61
 @ ./src/panels/BasePanel.ts 7:28-62
 @ ./src/panels/CompilePanel.ts 4:20-42
 @ ./src/extension.ts 6:23-55

WARNING in ./node_modules/yargs-parser/build/index.cjs 1029:19-32
Critical dependency: the request of a dependency is an expression
 @ ./node_modules/yargs/build/index.cjs 1:60569-60592 1:61841-61864
 @ ./node_modules/yargs/index.cjs 5:29-57
 @ ./node_modules/@zowe/imperative/lib/imperative/src/Imperative.js 29:14-30
 @ ./node_modules/@zowe/imperative/lib/imperative/index.js 38:13-40
 @ ./node_modules/@zowe/imperative/lib/index.js 34:13-36
 @ ./node_modules/@zowe/zowe-explorer-api/lib/index.js 51:34-61
 @ ./src/panels/BasePanel.ts 7:28-62
 @ ./src/panels/CompilePanel.ts 4:20-42
 @ ./src/extension.ts 6:23-55

WARNING in ./node_modules/log4js/lib/appenders/index.js 36:11-32
Critical dependency: the request of a dependency is an expression
 @ ./node_modules/log4js/lib/log4js.js 27:18-40
 @ ./node_modules/@zowe/imperative/lib/logger/src/Logger.js 21:15-32
 @ ./node_modules/@zowe/imperative/lib/logger/index.js 31:13-36
 @ ./node_modules/@zowe/imperative/lib/index.js 37:13-32
 @ ./node_modules/@zowe/zowe-explorer-api/lib/index.js 51:34-61
 @ ./src/panels/BasePanel.ts 7:28-62
 @ ./src/panels/CompilePanel.ts 4:20-42
 @ ./src/extension.ts 6:23-55

In the listed source code, I am not using any require statements, so I'm not sure why I am getting these.

Here is my webpack.config.js:

// FILE COPIED AND MODIFIED FROM: https://code.visualstudio.com/api/working-with-extensions/bundling-extension#configure-webpack

//@ts-check

'use strict';

const path = require('path');

/**@type {import('webpack').Configuration}*/
const config = {
  target: 'node', // vscode extensions run in a Node.js-context 📖 -> https://webpack.js.org/configuration/node/
  entry: './src/extension.ts', // the entry point of this extension, 📖 -> https://webpack.js.org/configuration/entry-context/
  output: {
    // the bundle is stored in the 'dist' folder (check package.json), 📖 -> https://webpack.js.org/configuration/output/
    path: path.resolve(__dirname, 'dist'),
    filename: 'extension.js',
    libraryTarget: 'commonjs2',
    devtoolModuleFilenameTemplate: '../[resource-path]'
  },
  devtool: 'source-map',
  externals: {
    vscode: 'commonjs vscode', // the vscode-module is created on-the-fly and must be excluded. Add other modules that cannot be webpack'ed, 📖 -> https://webpack.js.org/configuration/externals/
    '@zowe/cli': 'commonjs @zowe/cli',
    'cpu-features': 'commonjs cpu-features',
    'keytar': 'commonjs keytar',
    './crypto/build/Release/sshcrypto.node': 'commonjs ./crypto/build/Release/sshcrypto.node'
  },
  resolve: {
    // support reading TypeScript and JavaScript files, 📖 -> https://github.com/TypeStrong/ts-loader
    extensions: ['.ts', '.js']
  },
  module: {
    rules: [
      {
        test: /\.ts$/,
        exclude: /node_modules/,
        use: [
          {
            loader: 'ts-loader'
          }
        ]
      },
      {
        test: /\.js/,
        include: /wontache/, // https://gitlab.com/jgonggrijp/wontache/-/issues/68
        type: "javascript/auto",
      }
    ]
  }
};
module.exports = config;

I have some other excluded externals such as @zowe/cli because of errors that the modules could not be found.

and the relevant bits from my package.json:

"scripts": {
    "vscode:prepublish": "npm run package",
    "compile": "webpack --mode development",
    "watch": "webpack --mode development --watch",
    "package": "webpack --mode production --devtool hidden-source-map && npm run copy-webviews",
    "lint": "eslint \"src/**/*.ts\"",
    "copy-webviews": "copyfiles -u 1 src/webviews/**/* dist && copyfiles walkthroughs/**/* dist"
  },
  "engines": {
    "vscode": "^1.95.0"
  },
  "dependencies": {
    "@types/node": "^20",
    "@types/vscode": "^1.95.0",
    "@types/vscode-webview": "^1.57.0",
    "@zowe/imperative": "^8.10.3",
    "@zowe/zos-files-for-zowe-sdk": "^8.8.4",
    "@zowe/zos-jobs-for-zowe-sdk": "^8.8.4",
    "@zowe/zos-tso-for-zowe-sdk": "8.12.0",
    "@zowe/zowe-explorer-api": "^3.0.3"
  },
  "devDependencies": {
    "@eslint/js": "^9.13.0",
    "@stylistic/eslint-plugin": "^2.9.0",
    "copyfiles": "^2.4.1",
    "eslint": "^9.13.0",
    "ts-loader": "^9.5.4",
    "typescript": "^5.7.2",
    "typescript-eslint": "^8.16.0",
    "webpack": "^5.103.0",
    "webpack-cli": "^6.0.1"
  }

Any advice? Thanks

[JWaters02]

A bit of a d'oh moment, I just added "@zowe/imperative": "commonjs @zowe/imperative", to my webpack.config.js externals and now all the warnings are gone. However, I see that zowe explorer webpack does not need to exclude zowe imperative or zowe cli in its webpack, so what is the difference?

[JWaters02]

Actually I am testing and now I get errors that @zowe/imperative cannot find module cross-paths which I am not explicitly including in my .vscodeignore, but then if I explicitly include that module I'll probably get errors that they can't find their dependencies and they can't find theirs and so on until I'll effectively be including half of node_modules which is against the whole point of bundling. So I do need to know why zowe imperative is giving the original warning so I don't have to exclude it in my webpack bundling...

[JWaters02]

Tried it just to check and yep exactly what is happening, so I don't even want to bother until we can know what the origin of this zowe imperative Critical dependency: the request of a dependency is an expression warning is when bundling it.

[t1m0thyj]

I don't think these warnings are as "critical" as Webpack makes them sound. I've seen them several times when packaging Imperative with VS Code extensions, but they've never caused a runtime issue. And for more severe dependency bundling issues, Webpack should flag them as errors rather than warnings.

For Zowe Explorer and the Zowe Remote SSH extensions, we've chosen to disable these warnings:
https://github.com/zowe/zowe-explorer-vscode/blob/35c10eb59a4cfaed7476966fb0987ef92df5391f/packages/zowe-explorer/webpack.config.js#L43-L45
https://github.com/zowe/zowe-native-proto/blob/d42f3ef4a68c82e8533345a001525a3ad66a0f6a/packages/vsce/rspack.config.js#L68-L70

[JWaters02]

This works, thanks a lot!