How to run kanel in an app using a forked version of this repo?

[christiaanwesterbeek]

I have made a fork from this repo with some minor changes that will also try to look for a target in the views.

The problem is that when I run yarn exec kanel that it runs the version of https://github.com/kristiandupont/kanel.

Let's dive in.

I've added my fork to some repo like this.

yarn add -D https://github.com/christiaanwesterbeek/kanel#additional-views-support

In the dependencies in node_modules, I can actually see my changes here

But not here

So, my question is how can I add my fork of kanel to some repo and execute kanel using my forks code, instead of kristiandupont's?

[kristiandupont]

I might be missing something but it looks like your version wasn't built? Did you run yarn build inside /packages/kanel?

[christiaanwesterbeek]

When in my local clone of my fork of kanel, I run yarn build inside /packages/kanel, I indeed see my changes in /packages/kanel/src/generators/resolveType.ts are built in /packages/kanel/build/generators/resolveType.js. The thing is that that directory is ignored, so not committed.

Now back to my application, where I have my fork as a dependency. This is the package.json of that application

...
"devDependencies": {
    "dotenv": "^16.0.3",
    "eslint-plugin-ignore-generated": "^3.1.0",
    "kanel-monorepo": "https://github.com/christiaanwesterbeek/kanel#additional-views-support"
}

The 2 screenshots in my first comment are from that application. As you can see, in the build directory there is not what would be the build result of my code. It seems unlikely that I need to go inside of node_modules/kanel-monorepo/packages/kanel to run yarn build there.

The problem I'm having should be easy to replicate. In any app where you already have kanel as dependancy, try to replace that with my fork, do yarn install, and see what's inside node_modules/kanel/build/generators/resolveType.js.

[kristiandupont]

Looking at your screenshots, you see your changes in a src folder that sits right underneath bin. In the second screenshot, the folder right underneath bin is the build folder. Are you referring to the same node_modules folder?

[kristiandupont]

Right, I think I understood that the second screenshot is from your clone, and the first one is from where you installed it?

[kristiandupont]

What does

ls -la node_modules/.bin/kanel

give you?

[christiaanwesterbeek]

➜  myapp> ls -la node_modules/.bin/kanel
lrwxr-xr-x  1 chris  staff  18 Feb  9 17:42 node_modules/.bin/kanel -> ../kanel/bin/kanel

Both screenshots are from the node_modules directory in my application. Just scrolled a bit and expanded the different folders. Just to clarify, here selected the 2 folders that I made the screenshots off:

[kristiandupont]

Oh, so you have both the regular Kanel installed as well as your fork?

[christiaanwesterbeek]

I don't think so, because this is the only thing I installed:

yarn add -D https://github.com/christiaanwesterbeek/kanel#additional-views-support

And the earlier package.json I showed and the screenshots I showed are the result of just that...

[christiaanwesterbeek]

I'm going to try that again, with a fresh blank app.

[christiaanwesterbeek]

mkdir myapp
cd myapp
yarn init
yarn add -D https://github.com/christiaanwesterbeek/kanel\#additional-views-support

Both kanel and kanel-monorepo in node_modules

kanel-monorepo has my code

kanel does not have my code

[kristiandupont]

No. I suggest you yarn remove kanel first so it doesn't interfere. I don't know what it will do if two packages try to create the same file in .bin but I suppose it's just a last-one-wins.

[christiaanwesterbeek]

You mean I should do?

mkdir myapp
cd myapp
yarn init
yarn add -D https://github.com/christiaanwesterbeek/kanel#additional-views-support
yarn remove kanel

That seems weird. I just reproduced the problem in a blank app, there was no kanel in the first place in there...

(or did we cross-post?)

[kristiandupont]

Ah of course, it's adding it because the mono repo itself refers to kanel (https://github.com/kristiandupont/kanel/blob/master/package.json#L32) -- maybe remove that in your fork. But you will need to manually create a symbolic link to the built version to run the cli.

[christiaanwesterbeek]

That is probably it. Thank you!!

I'm going to try that. Is the symbolic link something that I should commit in my fork?

[kristiandupont]

Well the thing is that you are not installing Kanel but the mono-repo the way you are doing it. The mono-repo doesn't have any CLI or anything, nor should it. The package itself is just in the packages/kanel folder, which is what is deployed to NPM.

[christiaanwesterbeek]

What would be an easier way to run a forked version of kanel in my app? Because I think I started off on the wrong foot by doing yarn add -D https://github.com/christiaanwesterbeek/kanel#additional-views-support

[kristiandupont]

Good question!

I tend to just run it where I have it checked out (specifically, I tend to modify the .kanelrc file in the example folder) and inspect the results. Of course, if you need to compile the resulting code together with the rest of your code base, that won't work. You could replace the kanel folder in node_modules with a symlink to your kanel-monorepo/packages/kanel folder. It's a bit of a hassle but it should work.

[kristiandupont]

Actually, now that I think of it, I guess changing the symlink in node_modules/.bin to whereever you have it checked out should be sufficient. But I haven't tried it.

[christiaanwesterbeek]

That worked! I now simply cloned the kanel repo adjacent to my app. I checked out my feature branch, did yarn install, then cd ./packages/kanel, then yarn build.

Then I went back to my app and opened node_modules/.bin/kanel and modified it from this

#!/usr/bin/env node
require('../build/cli.js');

into this:

#!/usr/bin/env node
require('../../../../kanel/packages/kanel/build/cli.js');

Now In my app when I run yarn exec kanel, then the build of the adjacent forked kanel app is used!

Thanks for helping me out @kristiandupont !

[kristiandupont]

Awesome! I should probably add this to the README, it seems like good developer info!