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.