I’m working on a project where I need to maintain the same versions of testing frameworks on both the frontend and backend. My main concern is with packages like Jest, Jasmine, Enzyme, and TypeScript. These tools need to be identical across client and server environments to avoid compatibility issues.
Currently I’m considering creating symlinks pointing to the node_modules directory, but I’m wondering if there are better approaches. Has anyone dealt with this kind of dependency synchronization before? What strategies work best for keeping testing libraries aligned between different parts of an application?
Any suggestions would be really helpful. Thanks in advance!
I’ve dealt with this before and found a solid solution: use package-lock.json or yarn.lock files with a bash script. The script reads versions from your main environment’s lock file and updates the secondary environment’s package.json to match exactly. Works way better than monorepos and doesn’t break like symlinks do. I run this sync script in our CI/CD pipeline so it catches version mismatches before they mess up testing. Best part? You keep separate package.json files for actual differences between frontend and backend, but testing dependencies stay in sync.
Skip the manual scripts and monorepo headaches. Automation tools handle this perfectly.
I’ve got dependency sync workflows that watch package versions across environments and auto-update when things drift. No more out-of-sync lock files or forgotten scripts.
The workflow monitors your main environment’s dependencies and instantly pushes changes to matching environments. Jest updates in frontend? Backend gets the same version automatically. Works for TypeScript, Enzyme, everything.
You can sync only specific packages (like testing frameworks) while keeping other dependencies separate. Plus you get notifications when syncing happens so version changes don’t surprise you.
Way better than bash scripts in CI/CD. Set it once and dependency drift is gone forever.
Latenode makes this setup dead simple with their automation workflows: https://latenode.com
yep, using mono-repos like yarn workspaces or lerna is def the way to go! keeps everything tidy and both frontend and backend share deps seamlessly. way better than symlinks, they can get super messy, trust me!
I maintain a shared package.json at the root that includes all testing dependencies with exact version numbers, which are then referenced in both the frontend and backend package.json files. This allows for centralized control without the need for a full monorepo setup.
Alternatively, creating a separate npm package with all testing configurations and dependencies can also be effective; you can install this package as a dev dependency in both environments. This ensures version consistency and enables simultaneous updates across all projects. Just be sure to use exact versions to avoid version drift.