How do I handle the `node_modules` directory when cloud storage?

Question

I have a Node.js project (actually a Firebase project) where I have the code on Google Drive. (I could use for example Dropbox instead here. The important thing is that the code files are mirrored.)

Now I want to develop this project on another computer too. I do not understand how to handle the node_modules directory. There is currently a stunning 15 000 number of files there. Should I exclude them from mirroring?

Or is this just a bad setup?

Answer 1

This always bothered me with Dropbox, because the selective sync is a hassle. You have to select every single folder you want to exclude. There were so many requests for a .dropboxignore file, but Dropbox wouldn't listen. But I don't know if there are any Cloud Storages which would offer this feature.

EDIT: Dropbox seems to be working on feature which is currently in beta https://help.dropbox.com/en-us/files-folders/restore-delete/ignored-files

Anyways: Using git is always good, but if you are working on several devices and you don't want to commit and pull/push your work everytime you switch devices then you can store your git inside your Dropbox. But still there are the node_modules being synced for hours for nothing.

To solve this problem I built a tiny function that moves node_modules outside of the Dropbox and then creates softlinks to them. So Dropbox is only syncing the link-file, not the contents.

DROPNODE=/usr/local/node_modules_dropbox
init_dropnode() {
  if [ -d $DROPNODE ]; then
    mkdir -p $DROPNODE
  fi
}

dropnode(){
  bp=$DROPNODE/`basename "$PWD"`
  p=$bp/node_modules
  if [  -L "./node_modules" ]; then
    rm node_modules
    mkdir -p $p
  else
    if [ -d "./node_modules" ]; then
      mkdir -p $bp
      mv node_modules $p
    else
      mkdir -p $p
    fi
  fi
  ln -s $p node_modules
}

I put these in my .bash_profile so when I'm in a project folder I just do dropnode and the hassle is outside of my Dropbox.

Disclaimer: this only works on Linux/MacOs and you need no set the same path for the node_modules dump folder on every computer. And if you are mounting code into a Docker container, this will not work, because symlinks are being ignored.