markabrahams/nx-esbuild-esm-import-problem

Reproduction repo demonstrating Nx esbuild ESM import problem

Nx ESM Import Problem

This is an example repo showing how local ESM imports fail when using the ESM format with the Nx esbuild executor.

What I have done to set up

1. Generate project and enter project directory

npx create-nx-workspace nx-esbuild-esm-import-problem --package-manager=npm --preset=ts --nxCloud=skip
cd nx-esbuild-esm-import-problem

2. Add node executor

npx nx add @nx/node

3. Generate node app

npx nx g @nx/node:application my-app --framework=none --tags=type:app --e2eTestRunner=none

4. Set up dependency

echo 'export const myNumber = 42;' >my-app/src/dependency.ts
sed -i '1s/^/import { myNumber } from ".\/dependency";\n/' my-app/src/main.ts
echo 'console.log("My number: " + myNumber);' >> my-app/src/main.ts

5. Switch esbuild format from default CommonJS to ESM

sed -i 's/"format": \["cjs"\],/"format": ["esm"],/' my-app/project.json

6. Run app

npx nx serve my-app

Resulting error

mark@mymachine:~/node/nx-esbuild-esm-import-problem$ npx nx serve my-app

> nx run my-app:serve:development

[ watch ] build succeeded, watching for changes...
Debugger listening on ws://localhost:9229/c928aad8-8a6a-496b-97d5-a3dd13ea7399
For help, see: https://nodejs.org/en/docs/inspector

Error: Cannot find module '/home/mark/node/nx-esbuild-esm-import-problem/dist/my-app/dependency' imported from /home/mark/node/nx-esbuild-esm-import-problem/dist/my-app/main.js
    at new NodeError (node:internal/errors:405:5)
    at finalizeResolution (node:internal/modules/esm/resolve:226:11)
    at moduleResolve (node:internal/modules/esm/resolve:838:10)
    at defaultResolve (node:internal/modules/esm/resolve:1036:11)
    at DefaultModuleLoader.resolve (node:internal/modules/esm/loader:251:12)
    at DefaultModuleLoader.getModuleJob (node:internal/modules/esm/loader:140:32)
    at ModuleWrap.<anonymous> (node:internal/modules/esm/module_job:76:33)
    at link (node:internal/modules/esm/module_job:75:36)


>  NX  Process exited with code 1, waiting for changes to restart...

Workarounds

Two workarounds for the import failures are:

1. Append a ".js" to the import statement in "main.js" i.e.:

import { myNumber } from "./dependency.js";

2. Revert back to the CommonJS esbuild format in "my-app/project.json", although this is a wider change with other effects as well:

...
"format": ["cjs"]
...