forge: Couldn't find preset "env" relative to directory

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• I agree to follow the code of conduct that this project follows, as appropriate.
• I have searched the issue tracker for an issue that matches the one I want to file, without success.

Please describe your issue:

I have read through https://github.com/electron-userland/electron-forge/issues/154 and am having a duplicate of that issue. It seems that it’s necessary to do some configuration of a .babelrc somewhere but I don’t grok where or what to do.

I also made a posting in the electron section of https://discuss.atom.io/c/electron without getting a response.

I followed the directions on the home page of the electron-forge project to set up my Electron application for electron-forge. It is an editor application, and one thing it must do is require packages that are located in a different directory hierarchy.

That is, it is for editing a project which includes a Configuration object defined in a Node.js module, and there is a package.json in that directory, along with a node_modules directory, and it is required for the editor to load packages from that node_modules directory.

The project directory doesn’t require any Babel anything, and therefore doesn’t have a .babelrc or anything else related.

Launching my editor I get this (with DEBUG output)

$ DEBUG=electron-forge:* npm start

> ae@1.0.0 start /Users/david/akasharender/ae
> electron-forge start

WARNING: DEBUG environment variable detected.  Progress indicators will be sent over electron-forge:lifecycle
  electron-forge:lifecycle Process Started: Checking your system +0ms
  electron-forge:lifecycle Process Succeeded: Checking your system +1s
  electron-forge:runtime-config setting key: verbose to value: false +0ms
WARNING: DEBUG environment variable detected.  Progress indicators will be sent over electron-forge:lifecycle
  electron-forge:lifecycle Process Started: Locating Application +0ms
  electron-forge:project-resolver searching for project in: /Users/david/akasharender/ae +0ms
  electron-forge:project-resolver electron-forge compatible package.json found in /Users/david/akasharender/ae/package.json +8ms
  electron-forge:lifecycle Process Succeeded: Locating Application +10ms
  electron-forge:lifecycle Process Started: Preparing native dependencies +2ms
  electron-forge:lifecycle Process Succeeded: Preparing native dependencies +513ms
  electron-forge:hook could not find hook: generateAssets +0ms
  electron-forge:lifecycle Process Started: Launching Application +8ms
  electron-forge:lifecycle Process Succeeded: Launching Application +5ms
[ '/Users/david/akasharender/ae/node_modules/electron/dist/Electron.app/Contents/MacOS/Electron',
  '.' ]
App threw an error during load
Error: Couldn't find preset "env" relative to directory "/Users/david/ws/techsparx.com"
    at /Users/david/akasharender/ae/node_modules/babel-core/lib/transformation/file/options/option-manager.js:293:19
    at Array.map (native)
    at OptionManager.resolvePresets (/Users/david/akasharender/ae/node_modules/babel-core/lib/transformation/file/options/option-manager.js:275:20)
    at OptionManager.mergePresets (/Users/david/akasharender/ae/node_modules/babel-core/lib/transformation/file/options/option-manager.js:264:10)
    at OptionManager.mergeOptions (/Users/david/akasharender/ae/node_modules/babel-core/lib/transformation/file/options/option-manager.js:249:14)
    at OptionManager.init (/Users/david/akasharender/ae/node_modules/babel-core/lib/transformation/file/options/option-manager.js:368:12)
    at File.initOptions (/Users/david/akasharender/ae/node_modules/babel-core/lib/transformation/file/index.js:212:65)
    at new File (/Users/david/akasharender/ae/node_modules/babel-core/lib/transformation/file/index.js:135:24)
    at Pipeline.transform (/Users/david/akasharender/ae/node_modules/babel-core/lib/transformation/pipeline.js:46:16)
    at BabelCompiler.compileSync (/Users/david/akasharender/ae/node_modules/electron-compilers/lib/js/babel.js:81:26)

The directory /Users/david/ws/techsparx.com is the project directory, and it contains the stuff required to build the techsparx.com website. The editor code is in /Users/david/akasharender/ae and when I run npm start the shell’s PWD is in that directory.

During application startup it does this sequence of events:

// See https://discuss.atom.io/t/how-to-make-electron-prebuilt-respect-node-path/21757/8
const configjs = "/Users/david/ws/techsparx.com/config.js";
const configdirname = path.join(path.dirname(configjs), 'node_modules');
require('module').globalPaths.push(configdirname);

const config = require(configjs);

The purpose of this is so that other code in the application can require('akasharender') (the tool used to build the website). The akasharender modules are in /Users/david/ws/techsparx.com/node_modules hence that directory needs to be on NODE_PATH.

I did try in the project directory to do:

$ npm install babel-preset-env
$ npm install babel-preset-react

At first I just installed babel-preset-env but then it complained it couldn’t find babel-preset-react. Once both are installed the application starts correctly.

What command line arguments are you passing?

electron-forge start

What does your config.forge data in package.json look like?

    "config": {
        "forge": {
            "make_targets": {
                "win32": [
                    "squirrel"
                ],
                "darwin": [
                    "zip"
                ],
                "linux": [
                    "deb",
                    "rpm"
                ]
            },
            "electronPackagerConfig": {
                "packageManager": "yarn"
            },
            "electronWinstallerConfig": {
                "name": "ae"
            },
            "electronInstallerDebian": {},
            "electronInstallerRedhat": {},
            "github_repository": {
                "owner": "",
                "name": ""
            },
            "windowsStoreConfig": {
                "packageName": "",
                "name": "ae"
            }
        }
    },

Please provide either a failing minimal testcase (with a link to the code) or detailed steps to reproduce your problem. Using electron-forge init is a good starting point, if that is not the source of your problem.

$ electron-forge init foo
✔ Checking your system
✔ Initializing Project Directory
✔ Initializing Git Repository
✔ Copying Starter Files
✔ Initializing NPM Module
✔ Installing NPM Dependencies
$ cd foo/
$ ls
node_modules	package.json	src		yarn.lock
$ vi src/index.js

In index.js I added the following code

const path  = require('path');
const util  = require('util');

// See https://discuss.atom.io/t/how-to-make-electron-prebuilt-respect-node-path/21757/8
const configjs = "/Users/david/akasharender/a-e/config.js";
const configdirname = path.join(path.dirname(configjs), 'node_modules');
require('module').globalPaths.push(configdirname);

console.log(util.inspect(process.argv));
const config = require(configjs);

You will need to do the following prep work:

$ git clone https://github.com/akashacms/akashacms-example.git
$ cd akashacms-example
$ npm install

Then adjust the path I used above to match where you put the akashacms-example directory.

Then you run npm start – I get the following

$ npm start

> foo@1.0.0 start /Users/david/akasharender/foo
> electron-forge start

✔ Checking your system
✔ Locating Application
✔ Preparing native dependencies
✔ Launching Application
Warning, the following targets are using a decimal version:

  electron: 1.7

We recommend using a string for minor/patch versions to avoid numbers like 6.10
getting parsed as 6.1, which can lead to unexpected behavior.

[ '/Users/david/akasharender/foo/node_modules/electron/dist/Electron.app/Contents/MacOS/Electron',
  '.' ]
App threw an error during load
Error: Couldn't find preset "env" relative to directory "/Users/david/akasharender/a-e"
    at /Users/david/akasharender/foo/node_modules/babel-core/lib/transformation/file/options/option-manager.js:293:19
    at Array.map (native)
    at OptionManager.resolvePresets (/Users/david/akasharender/foo/node_modules/babel-core/lib/transformation/file/options/option-manager.js:275:20)
    at OptionManager.mergePresets (/Users/david/akasharender/foo/node_modules/babel-core/lib/transformation/file/options/option-manager.js:264:10)
    at OptionManager.mergeOptions (/Users/david/akasharender/foo/node_modules/babel-core/lib/transformation/file/options/option-manager.js:249:14)
    at OptionManager.init (/Users/david/akasharender/foo/node_modules/babel-core/lib/transformation/file/options/option-manager.js:368:12)
    at File.initOptions (/Users/david/akasharender/foo/node_modules/babel-core/lib/transformation/file/index.js:212:65)
    at new File (/Users/david/akasharender/foo/node_modules/babel-core/lib/transformation/file/index.js:135:24)
    at Pipeline.transform (/Users/david/akasharender/foo/node_modules/babel-core/lib/transformation/pipeline.js:46:16)
    at BabelCompiler.compileSync (/Users/david/akasharender/foo/node_modules/electron-compilers/lib/js/babel.js:81:26)