How to deploy node that uses Gulp to heroku

Question

I\'m using gulp and also gulp plugins like gulp-minify-css, gulp-uglify etc (that listed as npm dependencies for my application).

Also I don\'t commit npm_modules fo

Answer 1

You can do it!

There were a few key measures that helped me along the way:

1. heroku config:set NODE_ENV=production - to set your environment to 'production'
2. heroku config:set BUILDPACK_URL=https://github.com/krry/heroku-buildpack-nodejs-gulp-bower - to enable a customised Heroku buildpack. I incorporated elements of a few to make one that worked for me.

3. A gulp task entitled heroku:production that performs the build tasks that need to happen on the heroku server when NODE_ENV===production. Here's mine:

   var gulp = require('gulp')
   var runSeq = require('run-sequence')
   
   gulp.task('heroku:production', function(){
     runSeq('clean', 'build', 'minify')
   })
   

   clean, build, and minify are, of course separate gulp tasks that do the magic gulpage

4. If your application lives in /app.js, either:

   (A) make a Procfile in the project root that contains only: web: node app.js, or

   (B) add a start script to your package.json:

   "name": "gulp-node-app-name",
   "version": "10.0.4",
   "scripts": {
     "start": "node app.js"
   },
   

5. And like @Zero21xxx says, put your gulp modules in your normal dependencies list in package.json, not in the devDependencies, which get overlooked by the buildpack, which runs npm install --production