🚀 Node Modules Packer

This is a library to package all your node_modules and other files you want inside your project to a zip file. It's like using npm prune --production but without all the heavy I/O operations.

You can use this library to deploy applications in serverless environments, for example, without having to do lots of crazy configurations with webpack, also this library allows you to minify all .js files using esbuild.

I personally created this library inspired by an internal library I created for my company to deploy our NestJS apps for AWS Lambda. With this guy I improve deployment time by up to 441% (284% minified) and reduce the bundle size by up to ~40% (~55% minified) with the benefit that my Webstorm doesn't go crazy with dependency indexing every time I deploy because I no longer need to run npm prune --production just to get a descending build size.

Wait, you're asking me why I build and deploy the APIs on my computer instead of using CI/CD?

Well the answer is pretty simple, I want to be in control of these things ~~and we didn't have a CI/CD until a few months ago.~~

Use cases

In which cases this library might suit you:

If you deploy your nodejs apps in zip file with node_modules.
If you want to keep the directory structure (eg typeorm).
If you don't like dealing with webpack and just want to get things done.
If you use terraform to deploy in serverless environments, just point the output file to terraform and that's it.
If you want to minify all .js files, see --minify flag.
If you want to remap the files, like renaming dist to build.
If you like to deploy your app manually.
- This library can give you more control over how you compress your files without having to write a lot of code to do so.

In which cases this library might not fit you:

If you already have some webpack configuration to package your app.
If you don't need to maintain the directory structure.
If your nodejs app is very simple (see serverless-bundle).
If you use serverless.com.
- I've personally never used it, but it looks pretty good to use, see their packaging docs.

Usage

First, install the library with global flag:

npm i -g @h4ad/node-modules-packer

Then, enter inside the project you want to pack and run:

node-modules-packer run ./

By default, this command will:

Find all production dependencies and will package them all.
Ignore all development/peer/optional dependencies
Ignore many common unused file extensions (eg: .md, .d.ts, .js.map, ..etc)
- See the full list here.
Output the final zip with the name deploy.zip.

Examples

Include more files in the deploy.zip:

node-modules-packer run ./ -i dist -i package.json -i package-lock.json

During including, if you need to remap, you can use : between the paths:

node-modules-packer run ./ -i dist:build -i package.json:dist/package.json

Minify all .js files to reduce the bundle size:

node-modules-packer run ./ -i dist --minify

All .js files are minified, including files and folders that you include with -i flag.

If you want to preserve the class names, properties and other symbols, you can run with --minify-keep-names:

node-modules-packer run ./ -i dist --minify --minify-keep-names

Exclude unwanted file extensions from node_modules:

# This will exclude all json files from `deploy.zip`.
node-modules-packer run ./ -e .json

Include development/peer/optional dependencies (why?):

node-modules-packer run ./ --dev
node-modules-packer run ./ --peer
node-modules-packer run ./ --optional
# or have all at once
node-modules-packer run ./ --dev --peer --optional

Disable default ignored extensions (too much or we ignore something you want?):

See the full list here. to know what you will leave inside your zip file if you run with this flag.

node-modules-packer run ./ --disable-default-ignore-file-ext

Ignore some node folders/paths that you know that should be OUT of your zip file:

node-modules-packer run ./ --ignore-node-path="typeorm/browser" --ignore-node-path="aws-sdk"

Or include some node folders/paths that you know that should be INSIDE of your zip file, this is particulary usefull if you have some dependency with some misconfiguration of their dependencies.

# the path will be concatenated with `node_modules`, so this became
# `node_modules/some-dependency-you-want`
node-modules-packer run ./ --include-node-path="some-dependency-you-want"

We don't include sub-dependencies of these folders, so if that dependency has another dependency, that dependency might be outside your zip.

You can change the output path and the output filename with:

node-modules-packer run ./ --output-path ./deploy --output-file result.zip

Headless

You can use this library in headless mode, for example, for cases where there is a lot of customization.

import Run from '@h4ad/node-modules-packer/lib/commands/run';

// this is my configuration to deploy my NestJS APIs
// to AWS Lambda
const result = await Run.headless({
  dir: './',
  ignoreNodePath: ['typeorm/browser', 'aws-crt/dist/bin', 'aws-crt/dist.browser', 'sqlite3', 'aws-sdk'],
  include: ['dist', 'ormconfig.js'],
  outputPath: './deploy',
  outputFile: 'deploy.zip',
  minify: true,
  minifyKeepNames: true,
});

console.log(result.size);
console.log(result.file);
console.log(result.path);

Benchmarks

See here more about.

Reference

See commands reference