Pipelines: cache custom node_modules folder

[anurbol]

Do I understand correctly that pre-defined `node` cache only works when node_modules and package.json are located in the root directory of a project? Then how do I configure bitbucket-pipelines.yml to make cache work with node_modules folder located in subfolder (./public/node_modules/)? 

[anurbol · Accepted solution]

Managed to solve it

with:

...
- step
  caches: 
    - node-custom
  script:
    - if [ ! -d "node_modules" ]; then npm install; fi
...

definitions:
  caches:
    node-custom: public/node_modules

[James Hyatt]

Will that not cause problems if package.json is updated as the node_modules won't be re-generated once cached?

[Joshua Tonga]

It will. You need to manually delete your cached dependencies using the UI.

[Petr Peller]

There sure must be a way how to delete it automatically when package-lock.json changes?

[Thiago Silva]

@Petr Pelleractually, you don't need that line:

- if [ ! -d "node_modules" ]; then npm install; fi

Because the npm knows when to install/remove packages, I just changed this line by simply:

- npm install

And it works fine for me.

[Edgars Zagorskis]

I got on this problem while trying to set up a monorepo. And even more - i want to spare the execution of costly npm command. So I generated MD5 hash of the package-lock.json and then cache node_modules AND the MD5 hash. So far looks to be working fine. 

definitions:
  caches:
    app1: app1/node_modules
    app1-cache-key: app1/package-lock.md5

pipelines:
  branches:
    dev:
      - step:
          script:
            - cd app1
            - package-lock.md5
            - if [[ $(cat package-lock.md5 || '') != $(md5 package-lock.json) ]]; then npm ci && echo "$(md5 package-lock.json)" > package-lock.md5 ; fi