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@alanorth alanorth commented Aug 9, 2025

Description

The Node.js platform has evolved in recent years and there are some new patterns we should take advantage of.

See: https://kashw1n.com/blog/nodejs-2025/

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List of changes in this PR:

  • Use the node: prefix when importing built-in dependencies and add an eslint plugin to enforce
  • Use the Node.js Fetch API directly instead of relying on an external dependency (axios)
  • Use built-in Node.js watch functionality instead of relying on an external dependency (nodemon)
  • Fix import order to satisfy eslint

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Make sure the frontend builds and runs as expected, especially the builds that use watch like npm run start:dev.

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@alanorth alanorth added improvement dependencies Pull requests that update a dependency file code task labels Aug 9, 2025
Use the the `node:` protocol when importing Node.js builtin modules
and enable rule in eslint to enforce.

The `node:` protocol for Node.js builtin modules has been available
since Node.js v14.

See: https://github.com/import-js/eslint-plugin-import/blob/main/docs/rules/enforce-node-protocol-usage.md
We can use the Node.js Fetch API directly instead of relying on an
external dependency.
Modern Node.js can watch natively so we don't need nodemon anymore.
@alanorth alanorth force-pushed the modern-node branch 2 times, most recently from 2ac3cf4 to 4d70510 Compare August 9, 2025 09:27
@tdonohue tdonohue added this to the 10.0 milestone Aug 20, 2025
@tdonohue tdonohue moved this to 🙋 Needs Reviewers Assigned in DSpace 10.0 Release Aug 20, 2025
@tdonohue tdonohue self-requested a review August 20, 2025 20:40
@tdonohue tdonohue added the 1 APPROVAL pull request only requires a single approval to merge label Aug 20, 2025
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@nwoodward nwoodward left a comment

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👍 Thanks @alanorth. I'm by no means a Node expert, but this handful of changes makes sense, and it's nice to remove a few dependencies. The start:dev and test:watch commands work the same for me.

@github-project-automation github-project-automation bot moved this from 🙋 Needs Reviewers Assigned to 👍 Reviewer Approved in DSpace 10.0 Release Sep 10, 2025
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👍 Thanks @alanorth ! This looks good to me too, and I also like it removes some unnecessary dependencies. I also manually tested SSR (since this touches server.ts) and verified that it's still working properly.

@tdonohue tdonohue added the port to dspace-9_x This PR needs to be ported to `dspace-9_x` branch for next bug-fix release label Sep 10, 2025
@tdonohue tdonohue merged commit 11ca474 into DSpace:main Sep 10, 2025
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@github-project-automation github-project-automation bot moved this from 👍 Reviewer Approved to ✅ Done in DSpace 10.0 Release Sep 10, 2025
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Successfully created backport PR for dspace-9_x:

@alanorth alanorth deleted the modern-node branch September 30, 2025 05:46
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Has this been tested on Windows development environments?

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Hi @tamu-sad-iii. I have not personally tried this on Windows. These "modern" Node.js patterns use built-in Node APIs and functionality, so I assume they are better supported than external modules etc.

Do you build DSpace on a Windows system? If there are problems you can help us diagnose and if need be, we can revert the changes. Thanks.

@alanorth alanorth mentioned this pull request Nov 17, 2025
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@tdonohue tdonohue removed the port to dspace-9_x This PR needs to be ported to `dspace-9_x` branch for next bug-fix release label Nov 17, 2025
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