How include node_modules in output directory with TypeScript

Question

I want to know if it possible copy node_modules folder into output directory after run tsc command.

My situation it that I have a project with TypeScript and use some npm packages. And i need that my output directory has all npm dependencies, because i need to compress it and send by http (to AWS Lambda).

My project structure is like this:

|-.vscode --> visual studio code |-lib --> output dir |-node_modules --> npm dependencies |-src --> .ts files |-jsconfig.json |-tsconfig.json 

How can achieve it?

Thanks a lot!

Answer 1

I like Peopleware's solution a lot more than the accepted solution, but you don't even need gulp for that. You can simply do this in your package.json:

{   "scripts": {     "build": "tsc <your command line options>",     "postbuild": "cp package.json dist/package.json && cd dist && npm install --only=production"   } } 

The benefit of doing it this way is that you're not copying the entirety of your node_modules folder, because it might have a ton of dependencies only used during development.

You can do the same with static assets such as images or what not with:

"copy-statics": "cp -r static dist/static" 

Update: instead of using npm install --only-production it is safer to copy both package.json and package-lock.json and then run npm ci --production. This ensures that you only install the dependency snapshot that you have in your package-lock.json. So the command would look like this:

"postbuild": "cp package.json dist/package.json && cp package-lock.json dist/package-lock.json && cd dist && npm ci --production"