Installing dev dependencies in Google Cloud App Engine

Question

I'm trying to deploy my React app to the Google Cloud App Engine. I've added a app.yaml file too. It Looks like this:

// app.yaml    
runtime: nodejs
env: flex

Now, I want to build my project using webpack before deployment. So following the docs, I've added prestart script to the package.json. Now my scripts portion of package.json looks like this:

  "scripts": {
    "build": "npm-run-all --parallel webpack-client-build webpack-server-build",
    "webpack-server-build": "NODE_ENV='development' webpack --config ./webpack/webpack.server.config.js --progress --colors --watch",
    "webpack-client-build": "NODE_ENV='development' webpack --config ./webpack/webpack.browser.config.js --progress --colors --watch",
    "build-prod": "npm-run-all webpack-client-build-prod webpack-server-build-prod",
    "webpack-server-build-prod": "webpack --config ./webpack/webpack.server.config.js -p",
    "webpack-client-build-prod": "webpack --config ./webpack/webpack.browser.config.js -p",
    "prestart": "npm run build-prod",
    "start": "pm2 start dist/main.js"
  },

I'm using npm-run-all to build both server side and client side pacakges. But because of this, my build is failing as in docs it says

Note: Webpack must be listed in the dependencies of the package.json file, as by default devDependencies are not installed when the app is deployed to Google App Engine.

How can I install the node dev dependencies for deployment of my Node app in the Google Cloud ?

Thanks :)

Answer 1

When Google Cloud spins up an app it runs npm install however it only has access to dependencies and not devDependencies.

Try moving webpack into the dependencies portion of package.json.