npm install --only=prod

[phhoef]

Describe the bug When trying to install the dependency only with not devDependencies an error is raised. When only npm install is called, the installation is working.

root:/opt/test# npm install --only=prod
npm ERR! code 127
npm ERR! path /opt/test/node_modules/node-rfc
npm ERR! command failed
npm ERR! command sh -c prebuild-install -r napi || cmake-js rebuild
npm ERR! sh: 1: prebuild-install: not found
npm ERR! sh: 1: cmake-js: not found

npm ERR! A complete log of this run can be found in:
npm ERR!     /root/.npm/_logs/2022-03-31T10_25_06_456Z-debug.log

To Reproduce Create a new project with npm. Add node-rfc as dependency. Delete the node_modules folder and run npm install --only=prod

When adding the following two dependencies to my dependencies it is working:

• prebuilt-install
• cmake-js

Is this by design or should both dependencies moved from devDependencies to dependencies?

Environment

• The output of node -p "require('node-rfc').environment"

  environment: {
  "platform": {
  "name": "linux",
  "arch": "x64",
  "release": "5.10.0-13-amd64"
  },
  "env": {
  "SAPNWRFC_HOME": "",
  "RFC_INI": ""
  },
  "versions": {
  "node": "12.22.5",
  "v8": "7.8.279.23-node.56",
  "uv": "1.40.0",
  "zlib": "1.2.11",
  "brotli": "1.0.9",
  "ares": "1.17.1",
  "modules": "72",
  "nghttp2": "1.43.0",
  "napi": "8",
  "llhttp": "2.1.3",
  "http_parser": "2.9.4",
  "openssl": "1.1.1k",
  "cldr": "37.0",
  "icu": "67.1",
  "tz": "2019c",
  "unicode": "13.0"
  }
  }

[bsrdjan]

Thanks for finding this bug and the solution.

Is this by design or should both dependencies moved from devDependencies to dependencies?

According to prebuild documentation, only prebuild-install is mandatory dependency, moreover at application level. The installation should therefore work like:

npm i --only=prod prebuild-install node-rfc  

or

package.json

  "dependencies": {
    "node-rfc": "^2.6.0",
    "prebuild-install": "^7.0.1"
  }

Could you please check it it works in your environment?

I would move only prebuild-install to dependencies (from dev dependencies) because cmake-js requires native CMake which can't be installed "on the fly", together with other dependencies.

Would it work for your scenario?

[phhoef]

Hallo @bsrdjan, thanks for your quick reply. I can confirm, that adding prebuild-install to the dependencies is sufficient.