How to use plugins like serverless-domain-manager or serverless-offline

[ryanrubleycoates]

I'm not sure if there is a documented or official way to do this, because most of the plugins end up installing original serverless as a dep, and some of them require 4.0.0 as well now.

What I ended up doing was:

  "devDependencies": {
    "osls": "^3.49.0",
    "serverless-domain-manager": "^8.0.0",
    "serverless-esbuild": "^1.55.0",
    "serverless-offline": "^14.4.0",
    "serverless-prune-plugin": "^2.1.0",
  },
  "overrides": {
    "serverless": "npm:osls"
  }

I think, according to https://docs.npmjs.com/cli/v11/configuring-npm/package-json#overrides and https://docs.npmjs.com/cli/v11/using-npm/package-spec#aliases this is officially supported and the correct way to go about it, but we so seldomly actually need to use the overrides section in package.json, I'm not really sure.

Comments, suggestions? Or close this issue as solved by the above, and I hope this helps others migrate to osls.

[mnapoli]

I just install osls globally and run it. It correctly picks up the plugins installed locally.

[rageycomma]

I'm not sure if there is a documented or official way to do this, because most of the plugins end up installing original serverless as a dep, and some of them require 4.0.0 as well now.

What I ended up doing was:

  "devDependencies": {
    "osls": "^3.49.0",
    "serverless-domain-manager": "^8.0.0",
    "serverless-esbuild": "^1.55.0",
    "serverless-offline": "^14.4.0",
    "serverless-prune-plugin": "^2.1.0",
  },
  "overrides": {
    "serverless": "npm:osls"
  }

I think, according to https://docs.npmjs.com/cli/v11/configuring-npm/package-json#overrides and https://docs.npmjs.com/cli/v11/using-npm/package-spec#aliases this is officially supported and the correct way to go about it, but we so seldomly actually need to use the overrides section in package.json, I'm not really sure.

Comments, suggestions? Or close this issue as solved by the above, and I hope this helps others migrate to osls.

Is a good shout to be honest, worth adding to docs.

[theDevelopper]

I just install osls globally and run it.

What if globally installing it would not be an option (for whatever reason)?

[mnapoli]

It used to be a bad practice to install serverless globallybecause it didn't allow for different major versions. I don't see a new major version of this project happening, so I don't think there's a downside anymore to have it installed globally? Or am I missing other reasons?

[theDevelopper]

If something is a repository dependency it should be part of the repository. osls still receives and will receive updates over time, even if only to update allowed runtimes. Telling every developer to please make sure to update their global dependencies because one repo requires it will definitely lead to "it's not working for me, why?" questions because people just won't listen. And that costs time and time is money.
Then one would also need to have an additional install step in the CI/CD even though it easily could be handled by just running npm ci which one needs to do anyway.

And those are just for comfort.

There might also be volatile dev environments where one might not have access to globally installed node modules as the env is destroyed once you are done. Dunno...

So for the sake of the argument: "What if it cannot be installed globally? What arguments are there against having it as part of the package.json?"

[rageycomma]

If something is a repository dependency it should be part of the repository. osls still receives and will receive updates over time, even if only to update allowed runtimes. Telling every developer to please make sure to update their global dependencies because one repo requires it will definitely lead to "it's not working for me, why?" questions because people just won't listen. And that costs time and time is money. Then one would also need to have an additional install step in the CI/CD even though it easily could be handled by just running npm ci which one needs to do anyway.

And those are just for comfort.

There might also be volatile dev environments where one might not have access to globally installed node modules as the env is destroyed once you are done. Dunno...

So for the sake of the argument: "What if it cannot be installed globally? What arguments are there against having it as part of the package.json?"

Agree. I think global packages are generally a bad idea because they get updated much less often and would be out of sync with CI to where the developer could get a build passing on local and failing on CI, but that’s not the end of the world - dev just updates local to latest version and badabing badaboom.

[mnapoli]

Got it, I'm fine merging a doc improvement if someone wants to get to it.

[iwaduarte]

aliasing the dev dependency:

npm install -D serverless@npm:osls