Deploying NestJS to Azure DevOps: Error: Cannot find module '../commands'

Question

I have a very basic "Hello World" NestJS app that I'm trying to get deployed to an Azure Web App instance in Azure DevOps.

I have set up a build pipeline using a YAML file which outputs a build artifact with the dist and node_modules directories.

Then, in my release pipeline, I have a continuous deployment set up to download that artifact and deploy it. The release pipeline consists of a single step to Deploy Azure App Service. Furthermore, after this step, I entered some Post-Deployment Actions which are npm install , npm update , and npm run start:prod to get the NestJS server started.

However, when running the pipeline, that step takes an inordinate amount of time eventually erroring with:

When I visit the web app instance that I have set up ( https://<project-name>.azurewebsites.net/ ), I see:

So, I click on "Diagnostic Resources" to try to figure out why my release is failing and eventually discover this error:

2020-05-29T20:01:30.864090341Z   _____                               
2020-05-29T20:01:30.864143041Z   /  _  \ __________ _________   ____  
2020-05-29T20:01:30.864149941Z  /  /_\  \___   /  |  \_  __ \_/ __ \ 
2020-05-29T20:01:30.864153741Z /    |    \/    /|  |  /|  | \/\  ___/ 
2020-05-29T20:01:30.864157341Z \____|__  /_____ \____/ |__|    \___  >
2020-05-29T20:01:30.864161141Z         \/      \/                  \/ 
2020-05-29T20:01:30.864164541Z A P P   S E R V I C E   O N   L I N U X
2020-05-29T20:01:30.864167941Z 
2020-05-29T20:01:30.864171141Z Documentation: http://aka.ms/webapp-linux
2020-05-29T20:01:30.864174441Z NodeJS quickstart: https://aka.ms/node-qs
2020-05-29T20:01:30.864177741Z NodeJS Version : v12.13.0
2020-05-29T20:01:30.864181041Z Note: Any data outside '/home' is not persisted
2020-05-29T20:01:30.864184441Z 
2020-05-29T20:01:30.951441760Z Oryx Version: 0.2.20191105.2, Commit: 67e159d71419415435cb5d10c05a0f0758ee8809, ReleaseTagName: 20191105.2
2020-05-29T20:01:30.951840160Z Cound not find build manifest file at '/home/site/wwwroot/oryx-manifest.toml'
2020-05-29T20:01:30.951915661Z Could not find operation ID in manifest. Generating an operation id...
2020-05-29T20:01:30.952061661Z Build Operation ID: dfd18989-3b7b-4e2e-a64e-cf7310361e99
2020-05-29T20:01:32.750738663Z Writing output script to '/opt/startup/startup.sh'
2020-05-29T20:01:33.355033998Z Running #!/bin/sh
2020-05-29T20:01:33.359017599Z 
2020-05-29T20:01:33.359033399Z # Enter the source directory to make sure the script runs where the user expects
2020-05-29T20:01:33.359644199Z cd "/home/site/wwwroot"
2020-05-29T20:01:33.359658399Z 
2020-05-29T20:01:33.359664799Z export NODE_PATH=$(npm root --quiet -g):$NODE_PATH
2020-05-29T20:01:33.360538899Z if [ -z "$PORT" ]; then
2020-05-29T20:01:33.360552699Z         export PORT=8080
2020-05-29T20:01:33.360557899Z fi
2020-05-29T20:01:33.360561499Z 
2020-05-29T20:01:33.361582699Z npm start
2020-05-29T20:01:35.698639821Z 
2020-05-29T20:01:35.698668521Z > <project-name>@0.0.1 start /home/site/wwwroot
2020-05-29T20:01:35.698675121Z > nest start
2020-05-29T20:01:35.698679221Z 
2020-05-29T20:01:35.930729770Z internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:797
2020-05-29T20:01:35.930766970Z     throw err;
2020-05-29T20:01:35.930772870Z     ^
2020-05-29T20:01:35.930776770Z 
2020-05-29T20:01:35.930780670Z Error: Cannot find module '../commands'
2020-05-29T20:01:35.930784670Z Require stack:
2020-05-29T20:01:35.930788470Z - /home/site/wwwroot/node_modules/.bin/nest
2020-05-29T20:01:35.930792370Z     at Function.Module._resolveFilename (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:794:15)
2020-05-29T20:01:35.930803370Z     at Function.Module._load (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:687:27)
2020-05-29T20:01:35.930807770Z     at Module.require (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:849:19)
2020-05-29T20:01:35.930811570Z     at require (internal/modules/cjs/helpers.js:74:18)
2020-05-29T20:01:35.930815370Z     at Object. (/home/site/wwwroot/node_modules/.bin/nest:5:20)
2020-05-29T20:01:35.930819770Z     at Module._compile (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:956:30)
2020-05-29T20:01:35.930823570Z     at Object.Module._extensions..js (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:973:10)
2020-05-29T20:01:35.930827470Z     at Module.load (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:812:32)
2020-05-29T20:01:35.930831270Z     at Function.Module._load (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:724:14)
2020-05-29T20:01:35.930835070Z     at Function.Module.runMain (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:1025:10) {
2020-05-29T20:01:35.930838970Z   code: 'MODULE_NOT_FOUND',
2020-05-29T20:01:35.930842770Z   requireStack: [ '/home/site/wwwroot/node_modules/.bin/nest' ]
2020-05-29T20:01:35.930846670Z }
2020-05-29T20:01:35.970252977Z npm ERR! code ELIFECYCLE
2020-05-29T20:01:35.979824678Z npm ERR! errno 1
2020-05-29T20:01:35.981324478Z npm ERR! <project-name>@0.0.1 start: `nest start`
2020-05-29T20:01:35.982002178Z npm ERR! Exit status 1
2020-05-29T20:01:35.982641778Z npm ERR! 
2020-05-29T20:01:35.991823280Z npm ERR! Failed at the <project-name>@0.0.1 start script.
2020-05-29T20:01:35.991838780Z npm ERR! This is probably not a problem with npm. There is likely additional logging output above.
2020-05-29T20:01:36.118651500Z 
2020-05-29T20:01:36.119439400Z npm ERR! A complete log of this run can be found in:
2020-05-29T20:01:36.128548002Z npm ERR!     /root/.npm/_logs/2020-05-29T20_01_35_990Z-debug.log

At this point I can't figure out what is wrong. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

More than likely, you're using npm start which is mapped to nest start by default. The problem you'll run into with this is that @nestjs/cli (where the nest command comes from) is a part of devDependencies by default, so unless you've moved it, Azure is probably scrubbing the devDeps and keeping on prod deps. You should be using node dist/main to start your app instead to remove this problem without bloating your dependencies. Otherwise, adding @nestjs/cli to dependencies should fix it.