Node.js Production Build Using Webpack 4

Recently, one of my clients wants to generate node.js production build that includes node_modules so he doesn't need to run npm install on every server. Also he can distribute same build to his N number of customers servers. As this is deployed on multiple VM there is config.js file which will be going to read run time upon node server start. So I also need to consider that run time config as a part of bundle.

In this article I will show you how can you generate Node.js production build using webpack 4. 

When I started I found few articles but none of them has clear answer about how can I include config.js file as run time require file. 

Here is my most updated webpack.prod.config file for your reference.

const path = require('path');
const webpack = require('webpack');
const CleanWebpackPlugin = require('clean-webpack-plugin');
const HtmlWebpackPlugin = require('html-webpack-plugin');
const nodeExternals = require('webpack-node-externals');
const CopyWebpackPlugin = require('copy-webpack-plugin')

module.exports = {
entry: {
app: './src/index.js'
},
plugins: [
new CleanWebpackPlugin(['dist']),
new webpack.IgnorePlugin(/vertx/),
new CopyWebpackPlugin([
    { from: './src/config.js' }
]) 
],
output: {
filename: '[name].bundle.js',
path: path.resolve(__dirname, 'dist')
},
target: 'node',
externals: [nodeExternals()],
module: {
exprContextCritical: false
}
};

This config will basically generate bundle.js and will also copy config.js file into build directory using CopyWebpackPlugin. For config.js to be referred run time I have to make following changes in my code.

let config;

if(process.env.NODE_ENV === 'production'){
config = __non_webpack_require__("./config.js");
} else {
config = require('./config');
}

export default config;

__non_webpack_require__ will basically used to tell webpack to ignore that require to be transpile. Now whenever I run bundle.js it will include config.js from the current directory as module dependency. Bundle is so clean that client does not need to run npm install command everytime.

What's Next?

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