Path resolution in npm linked modules report module and not root app path.

[inxilpro]

Path resolution in npm linked modules report module and not root app path.

[FagnerMartinsBrack]

I have to share an interesting bug that caused an outage and took me a long time to figure out and is directly related to this issue:

https://medium.com/@fagnerbrack/the-story-of-a-stupid-bug-that-is-impossible-to-reproduce-6863ac526172

Basically:

1. NPM install on local files creates a symlink.
2. Zipping removes the symlink.
3. This can cause a bug with tools like app-root-path that uses _dirname which can only happen in prod and is impossible to reproduce locally.

Exactly like what @jorgechen said.

[stoicskyline]

The cause is using __dirname to resolve the root path.

If a module is linked while being used locally in an app, the __dirname in app-root-path may not overlap with the app's path.

It makes using npm link or yarn link quite a hassle. Is there an easy way to fix this, or perhaps app-root-path is simply not intended to be used in a NPM module?

[harryhorton]

Ran into this issue in an npm module I was developing. It worked great when actually npm/yarn installed, but not when linked. I ended up just creating a workaround option in my package for project root. However, it'd be great if there was a fallback if linked to somehow get the running project's root.

[MetaMmodern]

same issue here( Does not work when creating custom package for npm, it starts referring to the package project directory.

[ByScripts]

Same problem with pnpm workspaces.

Temporarily, I solved the issue by defining a APP_ROOT_PATH environment var.

"scripts": {
  "dev": "APP_ROOT_PATH=`pwd` my-dev-command"
}