first local test run requires npm run build

[zeke]

A fresh clone of this repo requires npm run build to be run before all the tests will pass. This is an easy thing to forget because you only have to run it once and then npm test continues to work without a fresh build.

One way we can work around this is by adding a pretest script to package.json with a value of npm run build. That way the build will always run first when anyone runs npm test.

That would solve the immediate problem for first-time contributors, but it would also incur a performance penalty every time you run the tests locally, as the build currently takes ~4 seconds to run on my superfast computer. Maybe 4s doesn't matter much in the grand scheme of things... but it would be nice to not incur that cost.

🤔 What are some ways we can solve this?

cc @github/docs-engineering @jeffmcaffer

[github-actions]

This issue is stale because it has been open 60 days with no activity.

[JamesMGreene]

For the short term, we've also clarified this in the contributing/development documentation: 054f9ab

[FarazzShaikh]

@zeke Why not use the postinstall script in the package.json to run the build script. It only runs once after npm install.

cc: @JamesMGreene @janiceilene

[zeke]

Good idea @FarazzShaikh! That might work. Would you care to give it a try and open a PR if it does?

[FarazzShaikh]

Will do later today! Could you assign this issue to me so it doesn’t slip my mind? Thank you!

[FarazzShaikh]

This does indeed work. Adding the script "postinstall": "npm run build" to package.json does build once after installations. However, one test (tests/routing/developer-site-redirects.js) fails when running npm run test but i don't think it's related to this.

Also, you might have to change your Actions workflows as npm ci also calls postinstall thus making the npm run build commands redundant.

@zeke if you're fine with this, I can make the changes to the workflows and the package.json then PR it in.

[JamesMGreene]

@FarazzShaikh We're definitely open to that! FWIW, your PR will receive a message saying we don't accept contributions to workflow files but we're willing to make exceptions for small change sets like what you mentoned. 👍🏻

One suggestion, though, would be to use the prepare script instead of postinstall as that more closely aligns with our needs (building/transpiling code) semantically.

[FarazzShaikh]

Sounds good, I’ll make the required changes with prepare And PR it in

[JamesMGreene]

We've decided not to implement this behavior for the time being.

More details: #7713 (comment)