/tmp/node_modules directory is missing during run time

[ejayesh]

The latest npm_install buildpack is removing the /tmp/node_modules directory after build. Older buildpacks eg 0.7.1 used the directory /layers/paketo-buildpacks_npm-install/modules/node_modules, which persisted.

Expected Behavior

/tmp/node_modules should exist

Current Behavior

/tmp/node_modules is being removed

Possible Solution

No need to remove it or just store node_modules elsewhere.

Steps to Reproduce

Motivations

Our application is looking for packages that are installed in the /workspace/node_module directory during run time. Not having this here is caused the application to fail. Other npm-install buildpacks (eg Heroku, cloud-foundry) do not remove this directory and I can see from your older release (0.7.1) that this was not removed. Can this behaviour be reverted back? Or at least have an option to not remove that directory.

[ejayesh]

I have managed to resolve the issue. node_modules is not created or possibly removed when you do not specify in package.json npm install somewhere in the scripts section. eg. "scripts": { "build": "npm install" }

On previous releases of npm-install or with other buildpack this was not required.

[ryanmoran]

This seems very suspect. Can you provide us with some more details on what kind of app this is? What langauge-family buildpack you are using (Node.js? Web Servers?)? It might be very helpful to include examples of package.json files that don't work correctly.

[ejayesh]

We are migrating from Cloud Foundry onto AWS ECS so we are using Paketo to build OCIs that we can deploy. The Source code in question is here: https://github.com/uktrade/return-to-office/blob/master/package.json

This is a Django app, that takes care of the Web server, as per Procfile. We run the following pack command.

pack build ${DOCKERREG}/${APP_NAME} \ --tag ${DOCKERREG}${APP_NAME}:${GIT_TAG} \ --builder paketobuildpacks/builder:0.2.263-full \ --buildpack python --buildpack nodejs

This is what pack detects.

[detector] 9 of 15 buildpacks participating [detector] paketo-buildpacks/ca-certificates 3.5.1 [detector] paketo-buildpacks/cpython 1.8.4 [detector] paketo-buildpacks/pip 0.16.4 [detector] paketo-buildpacks/pip-install 0.5.9 [detector] paketo-buildpacks/python-start 0.14.3 [detector] paketo-buildpacks/procfile 5.5.0 [detector] paketo-buildpacks/node-engine 1.2.1 [detector] paketo-buildpacks/npm-install 1.0.3 [detector] paketo-buildpacks/node-run-script 1.0.2

Thanks. fyi, I resolved this issue by updating package.json as per this. https://github.com/uktrade/return-to-office/blob/copilot/package.json

[c0d1ngm0nk3y]

The issue is that you are using a Procfile. No buildpack is requesting "node_modules" to be present at run time. npm-start would do so, but you do not have a start script defined in your package.json. If you would add

"scripts": {
        "start": "./scripts/entry.sh"
    }

and get rid of the Procfile the node_modules would be present at runtime.

@ejayesh Your workaround works of course as well, but you are installing "node_modules" twice. Is there a reason why you *need a Procfile?

[mhdawson]

@ejayesh looks like @c0d1ngm0nk3y answered your question. Is this still an issue for you or can the issue be closed?

[c0d1ngm0nk3y]

It look like this was answered...