Absolute Imports and ESM

[Zemnmez]

I've been using absolute imports via NODE_PATH for some time now. This has been chugging along just wonderfully with aspect_rules_js. However, I am trying to migrate to ESM so I can use the latest versions of some libraries, and ESM support in Node specifically removes NODE_PATH functionality.

It is suggested by the Node team that symlinks are created to get an absolute import effect – in the original rules_js, I used link_workspace_root which implemented this feature, however this was removed in aspect_rules_js.

I naiively tried creating a symlink in //:node_modules that goes to .., but this created an awful loop that made Node very sad:

genrule(
	name = "gen_absolute_import_shim",
	outs = [ "node_modules/monorepo" ],
	cmd = """
		mkdir -p node_modules
		ln -s .. $@
	"""
)

Error Log

ERROR: /Users/tshadwell/code/monorepo/ts/knowitwhenyouseeit/BUILD.bazel:40:8: JsRunBinary ts/knowitwhenyouseeit/package.json failed: Exec failed due to IOException: /private/var/tmp/_bazel_tshadwell/f7d9bb6f07b31d1ba7eb0c999b8bb37b/execroot/monorepo/bazel-out/darwin_arm64-fastbuild/bin/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/js/api-documenter/api_documenter_binary.sh.runfiles/monorepo/node_modules/.aspect_rules_js/[email protected]/node_modules/graceful-fs (Too many levels of symbolic links)
ERROR: /Users/tshadwell/code/monorepo/ts/knowitwhenyouseeit/BUILD.bazel:40:8: JsRunBinary ts/knowitwhenyouseeit/api-extractor.json failed: Exec failed due to IOException: /private/var/tmp/_bazel_tshadwell/f7d9bb6f07b31d1ba7eb0c999b8bb37b/execroot/monorepo/bazel-out/darwin_arm64-fastbuild/bin/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/js/api-documenter/api_documenter_binary.sh.runfiles/monorepo/node_modules/.aspect_rules_js/[email protected]/node_modules/graceful-fs (Too many levels of symbolic links)
ERROR: /Users/tshadwell/code/monorepo/ts/cmd/svgshot/BUILD.bazel:54:8: JsRunBinary ts/cmd/svgshot/api-extractor.json failed: Exec failed due to IOException: /private/var/tmp/_bazel_tshadwell/f7d9bb6f07b31d1ba7eb0c999b8bb37b/execroot/monorepo/bazel-out/darwin_arm64-fastbuild/bin/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/js/api-documenter/api_documenter_binary.sh.runfiles/monorepo/node_modules/.aspect_rules_js/[email protected]/node_modules/graceful-fs (Too many levels of symbolic links)
ERROR: /Users/tshadwell/code/monorepo/ts/do-sync/BUILD.bazel:22:8: JsRunBinary ts/do-sync/api-extractor.json failed: Exec failed due to IOException: /private/var/tmp/_bazel_tshadwell/f7d9bb6f07b31d1ba7eb0c999b8bb37b/execroot/monorepo/bazel-out/darwin_arm64-fastbuild/bin/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/node_modules/monorepo/js/api-documenter/api_documenter_binary.sh.runfiles/monorepo/node_modules/.aspect_rules_js/[email protected]/node_modules/graceful-fs (Too many levels of symbolic links)

I've considered solving this by moving the entire monorepo up one directory (called 'monorepo') and symlinking that. But before I take such a drastic step, I was hoping there were other options.

Thanks for any help in advance!

[Zemnmez]

managed to get it to work! node added a change in March of last year that allows you to specify an "imports" field which essentially works the same way as "paths" in tsconfig.json zemn-me/monorepo@5538c1d