I’m trying to follow the common practice of committing all dependencies to version control but running into several challenges.
First issue: Many npm packages have their own .gitignore files that exclude node_modules. This means nested dependencies don’t get committed. Should I modify these .gitignore files or is there a better approach?
Second issue: Some packages contain native compiled code. The recommended approach is to commit source files and run npm rebuild during deployment. However, this command doesn’t always perform a complete rebuild of all modules. This creates a problem where compiled binaries from my development machine might end up on production servers.
The modules don’t use consistent directory structures for build outputs, so I can’t rely on ignoring standard paths like build/ or dist/.
// Example of problematic package structure
my-project/
├── node_modules/
│ ├── package-a/
│ │ ├── compiled/ // build output here
│ │ └── src/
│ └── package-b/
│ ├── lib/ // build output here instead
│ └── source/
What’s the best way to ensure production environments use identical dependency versions as development?
rebuild issues with native modules are super common. try creating an .nvmrc file for consistent node versions - that’s the main culprit. also, delete your package-lock.json and node_modules, then run npm install again. a corrupted lock file can cause crazy rebuild problems.
Don’t commit node_modules to version control anymore. Use package-lock.json or yarn.lock instead - they lock exact versions without storing the actual packages. For native modules, I use a multi-stage approach that works well. Set your exact Node version in package.json’s engines field. Then use Docker or similar tools to keep dev and production environments identical. For those rebuild issues - try npm ci instead of npm install. It forces a clean install from package-lock.json and handles native rebuilds better. Run node-gyp rebuild as a separate step too. This combo fixes most compilation problems. Those directory structure headaches you’re dealing with? That’s exactly why teams stopped committing dependencies. Lock files give you reproducible builds without the maintenance nightmare of tracking every package’s structure.
Had this exact issue two years ago when we were still committing node_modules. The gitignore conflicts were nothing compared to the binary compatibility nightmares between different OS environments. We ended up switching to containers with Alpine Linux as the base image. Same container for dev and production - completely eliminates native module compilation issues. Package-lock.json works fine, but if you’re dealing with complex native deps like node-sass or sqlite3, containers give you way better isolation. Pro tip: we used npm shrinkwrap during the transition to create an extra lock file that includes devDependencies. Gave us peace of mind that builds were actually reproducible before we trusted the new setup.