What is the proper way to deal with node_modules in git?

Question

I am a beginner with git and node. So I created a new repository in git, and installed react and babel, and git is telling me that the repository is too large. Literally all I did was run something like this:

created index.html
created app.js
> npm init (initialized package.json)
> npm install --save react react-dom
> npm install --save-dev babel_preset_react
> npm install --save-dev babel_preset_es2015
added babel config to package.json

Maybe I'm missing something, but I haven't even built anything yet, and I'm already getting complaints that my repo is too large. Git desktop is even throwing OutOfMemory exceptions! So I wondered, maybe I'm not supposed to check in the node_modules folder. Then I read this:

https://web.archive.org/posts/nodemodules-in-git.html

But I am even more confused now. The article says you should check in node_modules for projects that you deploy. But doesn't that mean it's still going to be a "large repository?"

At the bottom, the article says not to add node_modules to gitignore. I think gitignore just ignores the files in that folder from being committed to git. So is this telling us to not ignore node_modules? As in, check-in node_modules?

And what is that $ npm rebuild on deploy?

As a beginning to npm and git, can someone explain what I should do in simpler terms?

Answer 1

I just checked the link you shared is broken. We never check-in node_modules to repositories they easily add LOT of MBs to the overall size. Please add the node_modules in .gitignore. You should only checkin package.json to your repository. This is how my .gitignore in AngularJs project looks like,

.idea
node_modules
dist
npm-debug.log*
.DS_Store

If you are worried about the breaking changes due to version upgrade please specify the "~" sign in front of the version no. of packages (package.json) so only the patches will be considered.

Ex.,

"angular": "~1.5.6"

Answer 2

you don`t need to push node_modules into your repo . Add node_modules to gitignore and when you deploy your code on the server you have to install node_modules over there using command :

npm install

As your package.json is updated when you locally install node_modules and it is pushed to repo . When you run npm install on the server , all your packages will be installed which are mentioned in package.json