Angularjs – Why is the node_modules folder not committed to Git

angularjsgruntjsyeoman

When I create an AngularJS project with

yo angular

it creates a node_modules/ directory but puts that directory in .gitignore. When I clone the project elsewhere and run

grunt server

I get

Fatal error: Unable to find local grunt.

If you're seeing this message, either a Gruntfile wasn't found or
grunt hasn't been installed locally to your project. For more
information about installing and configuring grunt, please see the
Getting Started guide:

The getting started guide doesn't say anything about how to handle the missing node_modules/ directory however.

The node_modules/ directory is missing deliberately because yeoman put it in .gitignore.

What's the right way to use Yeoman and Grunt in this case?
Is there some better documentation for Yeoman and Grunt?

Thanks.

Best Answer

That is the correct behaviour. The contents of node_modules is not meant to be committed to source control. The idea behind npm is that it tracks all required node dependencies in a file called package.json. This file should be committed to source control. Then on a different machine, you can check out the code and run

npm install

This looks at the package.json file and downloads all required files from the cloud and puts them all into a new node_modules directory.

Related Solutions

Javascript – causing this error – “Fatal error: Unable to find local grunt”

I think you don't have a grunt.js file in your project directory. Use grunt:init, which gives you options such as jQuery, node,commonjs. Select what you want, then proceed. This really works. For more information you can visit this.

Do this:

 1. npm install -g grunt
 2. grunt:init  ( you will get following options ):
      jquery: A jQuery plugin
      node: A Node module
      commonjs: A CommonJS module
      gruntplugin: A Grunt plugin
      gruntfile: A Gruntfile (grunt.js)
 3 .grunt init:jquery (if you want to create a jQuery related project.).

It should work.

Solution for v1.4:

1. npm install -g grunt-cli
2. npm init
   fill all details and it will create a package.json file.
3. npm install grunt (for grunt dependencies.)

Edit : Updated solution for new versions:

 npm install grunt --save-dev

Node.js – How to run grunt from a different folder than the root project

You can set two parameters --base and --gruntfile

From grunt --help:

--base Specify an alternate base path. By default, all file paths are relative to the Gruntfile. (grunt.file.setBase) *

--gruntfile Specify an alternate Gruntfile. By default, grunt looks in the current or parent directories for the nearest Gruntfile.js or Gruntfile.coffee file.

So, you can execute:

grunt --base c\my_app --gruntfile c\my_app\GruntFile.js mytask

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Javascript – causing this error – “Fatal error: Unable to find local grunt”

Node.js – How to run grunt from a different folder than the root project

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