tl;dr

webpack-workspace uses webpack to import node modules from a source directory instead of using the node_modules/package-name path.

require('package-name'); //=> require('/path/to/workspace/package-name/src/index.js');

You're able to quickly make changes to any of the packages in your workspace and see those changes reflected without having to build each package independently.

Target Audience

You have a project that consists of multiple node packages. These packages share the same workspace directory or project root. Packages in this workspace depend on other packages in this workspace. You want to be able to import these packages from their source and not have to build, transpile or bundle dependencies each time you change one package.

Example Use Case

You break up your project into 4 node packages called: components, core, app, and server. The app package imports the core and components packages, and the server package imports the app package like:

You place all these packages in a single project root directory, in this document, called a "workspace". At a high level, the file structure looks like:

workspace/
+-- components/
    +-- package.json
    +-- src/
    +-- node_modules/
+-- core/
    +-- package.json
    +-- src/
    +-- node_modules/
+-- app/
    +-- package.json
    +-- src/
    +-- node_modules/
        +-- components/
        +-- core/
+-- server/
    +-- package.json
    +-- dev-server.js
    +-- node_modules/
        +-- app/

Notice that the app package dependencies, components and core are built into it's local node_modules/ directory. Import statements in the app package for modules in the components or core packages are resolved using webpack module-resolution which normally looks in the local ./node_modules directory for matching package names. In your app package code, when you require('core'); or require('components'); webpack will look in ./node_modules/core/ and ./node_modules/components/.

If you need to make changes to both the core and app packages, it can be inconvenient if you need to build each of these packages independently before seeing your changes reflected in a development server.

With little configuration, using webpack-workspace, you can specify a path pattern to "workspaces", a directory that acts as a project root and contains multiple package source directories or repositories. webpack-workspace will look for valid node package directories in a workspace then add a webpack resolve.alias pointing to a source entry point for that node package directory.

When webpack-workspace is active, require('core'); or require('components'); will be evaluated as require('../core/src/'); and require('../components/src/');.

You're able to quickly make changes to any of the packages in your workspace and see those changes reflected without having to build each package independently.

License

MIT