Webpack - How do you require an optional dependency in bundle (saslprep)

Question

I am using webpack to bundle a number of back-end scripts into a single file during my deployment process.

When connecting to the MongoDB database there is an option

Answer 1

Thanks to Brendan for steering me in the right direction. Ultimately the answer was found here: http://www.matthiassommer.it/software-architecture/webpack-node-modules/

The key piece of information being:

Webpack’s compiler converts the require() call to its own webpack_require(). At runtime it looks into its internal module registry.

Following the steps outlined therein the resolution becomes:

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

module.exports = {
    entry: './src/api/index.ts',
    target: 'node',
    mode: 'production',
    module: {
        rules: [
            {
                test: /\.tsx?$/,
                loader: 'ts-loader',
                exclude: /node_modules/
            }
        ]
    },
    resolve: {
        extensions: ['.js', '.tsx', '.ts', '.json'],
    },
    output: {
        filename: 'api.js',
        path: path.resolve(__dirname, 'dist'),
    },
    plugins: [
        new webpack.IgnorePlugin(/fsevents/),
        new webpack.IgnorePlugin(/blessed/),
    ],
    externals: {
        "saslprep": "require('saslprep')"
    }
};

Please note that in my testing the quotes around "saslprep" do appear to berequired when importing externals.