Create a bundling setup for hopr-chat to ensure only needed dependencies are to be compiled into the binary

[0xjjpa]

Introduction

Right now, hopr-chat works as a simple CommonJS (.cjs) application, that is first compiled into JavaScript from TypeScript, and then executed using Node.js v12.x. As we are looking to deliver hopr-chat as a standalone binary that can be used in multiple operating systems like Windows, we need to bundle all our node dependencies with binary bundling tooling like electron-builder, nexe or pkg. Unfortunately, as hopr-core (and hence hopr-chat) relies in very specific libraries that require low-level APIs (e.g. wrtc), it would be easier to first ensure we only bundle what is needed to ensure only external dependencies are needed and then passing those to binary bundlers.

Task Description

• Create an aegir, rollup or similar setup to bundle hopr-chat after being compiled into JavaScript. The process can be two fold (e.g. first compile, then bundle) or into a single step using adequate plugins (e.g. compiling and bundling at the same time).
• Create a new branch that provides the aforementioned setup and test it by running node bundled.js while removing all other compiled dependencies generated, as to ensure all code needed by hopr-chat has been included in bundled.js.

Definition of Complete

The task is considered completed when a task inside package.json called build:bundle is able to compile TypeScript and bundle the result into a single-entry point file.

Testing Criteria

• The compiled bundled can be executed using node and rely in no other external files.
• The filed underwent a tree-shaking process to ensure only needed dependencies were included.

Notes

Previous work has been done to allow this. A sample rollup configuration used is below, but bear in mind it might not be complete or is lacking. babel (and thus .babelrc) was used to do the compilation of TypeScript, but some external dependencies are still causing issues. In particular, ganache-core, used for testing is being embedded and breaking the build. Tickets on hoprnet/hopr-core-ethereum#63 and hoprnet/hopr-testing#1 are meant to solve this problem.

rollup.config.js

import resolve from "@rollup/plugin-node-resolve";
import babel from "@rollup/plugin-babel";
import commonjs from "@rollup/plugin-commonjs";
import json from "@rollup/plugin-json";
import alias from "@rollup/plugin-alias";
import path from "path";


export default {
  input: "index.ts",
  external: ["wrtc", "ganache-core", "web3-core"],
  output: {
    name: "HOPRChat",
    file: "hopr-chat.js",
    format: "cjs",
  },
  plugins: [
    alias({
      "package.json": path.join(__dirname, "package.json")
    }),
    resolve({ 
      extensions: ['.js', '.jsx', '.ts', '.tsx', '.json']
    }), 
    commonjs(), 
    babel({ 
      exclude: './node_modules/**', 
      extensions: ['.js', '.jsx', '.ts', '.tsx']
    }),
    json()
  ],
};

.babelrc

{
  "presets": ["@babel/preset-typescript"],
  "plugins": ["@babel/plugin-syntax-class-properties"]
}

[0xjjpa]

Pushing this one as currently our node-bin setup is working. We'll eventually figure an alternative whenever we go for a different transport that isn't wrtc. Pushing from sprint.

[nionis]

No longer relevant.