node_modules folder inside host, not symlinked

[Mte90]

Following hashicorp/vagrant#11842

In this way NPM inside develop works again inside VVV.
I am not sure if the folder path is right or not.

Still testing at 100%

[Mte90]

To me worked everything now :-)

[Mte90]

I was just thinking that this mount point doesn't persist on a new boot of the VM so every time is required a provision.
We don't have anything that let us to add a script on boot for this right?

[tomjn]

if it's in /tmp yes but we've put this in ~/.vvv so it's on the virtual disk image? That does mean a vagrant destroy would remove those folders though

[Mte90]

No I was talking about the mount command, that it will be kept just on that execution but it won't be persist at the next reboot.

[Mte90]

Any updates for this?

[tomjn]

I don't have the bandwidth to look at this, it may be several weeks before of time before it bubbles to the top of the queue and I can look at it myself ( VVV and non-VVV ).

[tomjn]

also how does this handle the user running commands on the host not the guest? Is the node_modules not visible in the host because it's a symlink to a VM only folder?

[Mte90]

The host cannot see the folder as it is symlinked inside the VM, just see a file with the symlink (on linux) to a folder that not exists in the host.

part that the other issue is the mount that we need in VVV otherwise it is required to do it everytime a provision.

[tomjn]

would it make more sense to instead tell npm to use a node_modules folder that lived somewhere else, rather than symlinking it? I can see symlinks causing problems on Windows as they require adminsitrator priviledges on a lot of Windows versions

[Mte90]

The problem is that npm has issues on using a shared folder for node_modules, so if it is inside the machine everything works.

[tomjn]

we don't know for sure if someone will use the host or the guest though, it either needs to work with both, or be configurable

[Mte90]

Well it will never work anyway.

If in the host I have nodejs 23 and VVV has nodejs 12 something will not work. that was basically the reason why I had those problems otherwise I executed npm in the host machine and not inside VVV.

[Mte90]

Ok so seems that on linux host the folder get shared also if it is from inside the machine:

When will finish I can try to execute npm from the host and see what happens.

[tomjn]

a lot of people will use watchers on the host as it's more reliable. NVM is installed inside the VM so users can switch to the appropriate node version, likewise they could do that on the host.

node_modules can be moved without a symlink via https://stackoverflow.com/questions/14742553/how-to-set-custom-location-for-local-installation-of-npm-package

Note there are also other consequences, those packages won't be indexable by editors and tools on the host.

At a minimum this would need to be optional, in addition to node modules, watchers don't work well on shared folders and that applies to core itself not just the node modules folder

Stack Overflow

How to set custom location for local installation of npm package?

Is it possible to specify a custom package destination for npm install, either through a command flag or environment variable?

By default, npm local installs end up in node_modules within the curr...

[Mte90]

So using npm from the host machine:

It is possible to not execute NPM from VVV in this template, there is an option I did few months ago.

The problem is that the nodejs version compatible is very old and VVV has the right one so creates a lot of troubles.
Anyway grunt was able to compile it and watch works, it is just the installation procedure that requires that nodejs specific version.

[tomjn]

The problem is that the nodejs version compatible is very old and VVV has the right one so creates a lot of troubles.

This is all solved by nvm for both the host and the guest VM

[Mte90]

Well I don't have nvm locally and don't want to install it just to have a specific nodejs version for wordpress.

[tomjn]

arguably it's better to install NodeJS only through nvm or a similar tool. nvm use will read the .nvmrc in the folder and install and set the appropriate Node version in the current shells path. It's far more reliable than installing NodeJS at a system level.

Even core has support for it: https://github.com/WordPress/wordpress-develop/blob/trunk/.nvmrc

It's also the secret sauce that lets VVV always have the correct Node version for core:

https://github.com/Varying-Vagrant-Vagrants/custom-site-template-develop/blob/master/provision/vvv-init.sh#L119-L122

GitHub

wordpress-develop/.nvmrc at trunk · WordPress/wordpress-develop

WordPress Develop, Git-ified. Synced from git://develop.git.wordpress.org/, including branches and tags! This repository is just a mirror of the WordPress subversion repository. Please include a li...

GitHub

custom-site-template-develop/vvv-init.sh at master · Varying-Vagrant-Vagrants/custom-site-template-develop

A VVV site template for working on WordPress Core development. For client development use the custom-site-template instead - custom-site-template-develop/vvv-init.sh at master · Varying-Vagrant-Vag...

[tomjn]

I've tried to fix a merge conflict, @Mte90 for this there should be an option, I can see it being useful for some people while breaking things for others.

I'd prefer things like this be trialled as parameters then promoted to defaults once we're sure all is good

[Mte90]

Well as today isn't good anyway as it is a mess to use npm inside a VM. It uses all the ram and crash at the end also with a symlinked folder, we should try yarn or pnpm to fix the issue at the top.
But I lost my interest in contributing to wordpress as it is required to compile with npm also if you are not interested on working in the JS part.