Why is the use node packages on .server.ts disabled?

[cyberwombat]

The remix serverPlatform is forced to "neutral" which prevents the use of many node modules such as the aws-sdk. Since this can be hosted on platforms such as Vercel and other NodeJS capable one I am confused as to why this is not allowed. I currently have to create a standalone API just to make a simple call to AWS from server code

[frandiox]

Hi 👋

I think the neutral platform is just preventing adding Node polyfills automatically to your server. However, you can still control this granularly in Remix by using the serverNodeBuiltinsPolyfill property in remix.config.js. LMK if that works for you.

[cyberwombat]

That did not seem to help my issue as found in #1367 (comment)

What I did was take the default and add "child_process":true. It yielded same errors of "Could not resolve "child_process".

Here's my config with this:

/** @type {import('@remix-run/dev').AppConfig} */
export default {
  appDirectory: 'app',
  ignoredRouteFiles: ['**/.*'],
  watchPaths: ['./public', './.env'],
  server: './server.ts',
  serverNodeBuwiltinsPolyfill: {
    modules: {
      _stream_duplex: true,
      _stream_passthrough: true,
      _stream_readable: true,
      _stream_transform: true,
      _stream_writable: true,
      assert: true,
      'assert/strict': true,
      buffer: true,
      console: true,
      constants: true,
      crypto: 'empty',
      diagnostics_channel: true,
      domain: true,
      events: true,
      fs: 'empty',
      'fs/promises': 'empty',
      http: true,
      https: true,
      module: true,
      os: true,
      path: true,
      'path/posix': true,
      'path/win32': true,
      perf_hooks: true,
      process: true,
      punycode: true,
      querystring: true,
      stream: true,
      'stream/promises': true,
      'stream/web': true,
      string_decoder: true,
      sys: true,
      timers: true,
      'timers/promises': true,
      tty: true,
      url: true,
      util: true,
      'util/types': true,
      vm: true,
      wasi: true,
      worker_threads: true,
      zlib: true,
      'child_process': true
    }
  },
  /**
   * The following settings are required to deploy Hydrogen apps to Oxygen:
   */
  publicPath: (process.env.HYDROGEN_ASSET_BASE_URL ?? '/') + 'build/',
  assetsBuildDirectory: 'dist/client/build',
  serverBuildPath: 'dist/worker/index.js',
  serverMainFields: ['browser', 'module', 'main'],
  serverConditions: ['worker', process.env.NODE_ENV],
  serverDependenciesToBundle: 'all',
  serverModuleFormat: 'esm',
  serverPlatform: 'neutral',
  serverMinify: process.env.NODE_ENV === 'production',
  postcss: true,
  tailwind: true,
  future: {
    v2_dev: true,
    v2_meta: true,
    v2_headers: true,
    v2_errorBoundary: true,
    v2_routeConvention: true,
    v2_normalizeFormMethod: true
  }
}

As mentioned in other discussion turning off "neutral" and using "node" allows node packages to run but I assume there is a reason neutral is set but cannot phantom.

[frandiox]

The serverNodeBuwiltinsPolyfill should actually be a separate export. As shown in docs: exports.serverNodeBuwiltinsPolyfill = {modules: {...}}.

You might still have issues with polyfills in the frontend I guess. Some libraries need to access global Buffer, process, etc.

[cyberwombat]

The question is... why do I need polyfills to run server only code? I am not sure what is going on behind the scene with remix but it sounds like it blocks access to code node modules in neutral mode which would make sense to ensure this ran in a non node environment but Shopify docs seem to indicate this can run on say Vercel. I think "neutral" is intended for CloudFlare compatibility but the docs should mention this will not work with NodeJS or ideally provide the user a choice of hosting. I am not sure what Hydrogen has in terms of capabilities?

[frandiox]

why do I need polyfills to run server only code

Well, if you want to run Node-only code in Oxygen, you'll need to polyfill certain Node APIs. The AWS dependency you are importing is internally accessing Node.js APIs that are not available in Oxygen. We might eventually support Node APIs but there's no ETA for this.

If your target is Vercel, then you probably shouldn't be using the Hydrogen CLI to build your project. I think Vercel has their own Remix integration: https://vercel.com/docs/frameworks/remix
Same for a pure Node/Express server. In that case, you would probably use the Remix CLI itself (docs).

You can still use the Hydrogen CLI for other utilities like pulling env variables or generating new routes. However, build and dev are platform-dependent. Agreed this should be clearer in the docs if we are not already mentioning it, though!

[frandiox]

I currently have to create a standalone API just to make a simple call to AWS from server code

Also, if you really just need a few calls to the AWS API, I think this approach might be better than importing a whole SDK. The size of the generated server bundle also matters since it affects cold-starts. That SDK was likely made for Node, where server size doesn't matter so much. In any case, I don't have much context on what you are trying to do so take this just as a general recommendation.

[cyberwombat]

OK. It's fine if Ofxygen doesn;t run node- certainly alternatives like a separate API - I did see a small s3 standalone client. Docs should def mention that this though so that devs know to build their backend code separately. I usually do but was quite excited to have it all in one :).

[cyberwombat]

Actually there is something odd going on I think. Someone here was having an issue whereas the aws-sdk was loading node modules (child_process, etc - just the ones I have issue with). The fix - for webpack - was to ensure that the loading was ['browser', 'module', 'main'] which evidently as I understand it ensured that the aws-sdk used the necessary polyfills or workaround within itself. I see that remix.config.js has a serverMainFields set to just that - however it looks the the dev and build command are somehow sending/using the wrong info and the sdk is loading the node variant.