NodeJS with Express Framework - relative path to js script

Question

I used Express generator to create node application. Directory structure looks like the following:

.
├── app.js
├── bin
│   └── www
├── package.json
├── public
│   ├── images
│   ├── javascripts
│   └── stylesheets
│       └── style.css
├── node_modules
│   └── jquery
│       └── dist
|            |___jquery.min.js
├── routes
│   ├── index.js
│   └── users.js
└── views
    ├── error.jade
    ├── index.jade
    └── layout.jade

In my index.jade file i try to reuse jquery.min.js from node_modules, instead use url to web source:

    doctype html
html
 head
 link(rel='stylesheet', href= '/stylesheets/style_monit.css')

body
 #container
  .row
   .col-sm-4(style='background-color:lavender;') .col-sm-4
   .col-sm-4(style='background-color:lavenderblush;') .col-sm-4     
   .col-sm-4(style='background-color:lavender;') .col-sm-4
   .col-md-4
    textarea#inData.form-control(style='background:#222; color:#00ff00;', rows='8')
 script(type='text/javascript' src='../node_modules/jquery/dist/jquery.min.js')

css file loads great, but in Chrome console i have error that

GET http://localhost:3000/node_modules/jquery/dist/jquery.min.js NOT FOUND

Answer 1

I believe the problem is that the node_modules directory is private and shouldn't be exposed to the client. Only static files in the public directory can be served. See this Stack Overflow answer for more information.