Fixing Electron Builder 'No Node Modules Found' Error

Hey guys, ever been there? You're cruising along, building your awesome Electron app, everything's compiling beautifully, and then wham! You update electron-builder, and suddenly your app won't package correctly, screaming about "no node modules found in collection." If that sounds familiar, you're in the right place. This issue can be a real head-scratcher, especially when you're dealing with monorepos and cutting-edge package managers like pnpm. It's a classic development hiccup where a perfectly functioning build environment suddenly goes haywire after what seems like a minor dependency update. Trust me, we've all felt that pang of frustration, staring at logs that make no sense, wondering why our beloved Electron app is refusing to bundle its essential dependencies.

Electron Builder is an incredibly powerful tool that simplifies the packaging and distribution of cross-platform Electron applications. It handles everything from compiling your code and bundling assets into the app.asar archive to generating installers for Windows, macOS, and Linux. For many developers, it's the backbone of their deployment pipeline, making the complex task of shipping an Electron app much more manageable. However, its sophisticated nature also means that when things go wrong, debugging can feel like untangling a ball of yarn in the dark. The core of this problem, the "no node modules found" error, indicates that electron-builder isn't properly identifying or including your project's JavaScript dependencies, which are absolutely crucial for your application to run. Without these modules, your Electron app is essentially an empty shell, unable to execute the logic that makes it functional. It's like trying to bake a cake without flour – it just won't work! We'll dive deep into understanding why this happens, particularly in the context of recent electron-builder updates and complex project setups, and most importantly, how to get your builds back on track. So, grab a coffee, and let's unravel this mystery together.

Understanding the "No Node Modules Found" Warning

Alright, let's break down what this ominous "no node modules found in collection" warning actually signifies. Essentially, electron-builder has a critical task: it needs to gather all the JavaScript dependencies your Electron app relies on and bundle them securely into your application's package, typically within the app.asar archive. The app.asar file is a special Electron archive format that helps protect your source code, reduce file I/O overhead, and make your application load faster. When electron-builder reports that no node modules were found in its collection process, it's a huge red flag telling you that it couldn't locate or properly include these essential third-party libraries.

Think about it: almost every modern JavaScript application, especially an Electron app, relies heavily on a vast ecosystem of node_modules. These can range from UI frameworks, utility libraries, data persistence tools, to network request handlers. If these modules aren't packaged correctly, your application simply won't launch or will crash immediately upon encountering missing functions or classes. The electron-builder packaging process is designed to automatically detect and include these dependencies, but sometimes, due to specific project configurations, especially in monorepos or with certain package managers, this auto-detection can falter. In our specific case, this issue magically appeared after an update from electron-builder version 26.3.2 to 26.3.3+. This is a critical piece of information because it suggests that a change in electron-builder's internal logic for dependency collection, or how it interacts with specific project setups (like pnpm workspaces), might be the root cause. It's not necessarily that your project setup suddenly became invalid, but rather that electron-builder's interpretation or processing of it changed. This shift often means that configurations that worked perfectly fine in an older version might now require adjustments to comply with the new logic. Understanding this distinction is the first step toward finding a robust solution and ensuring your Electron app continues to package flawlessly.

Diving Deep into the Build Logs: What's Happening Under the Hood?

To really get to the bottom of this "no node modules found" mystery, we need to put on our detective hats and scrutinize those build logs. They're often dense, but they hold all the clues! Let's walk through the provided log snippet piece by piece to understand what electron-builder is actually doing and where things might be going sideways.

First off, the log confirms we're running electron-builder version=26.3.4 on Windows. It then outputs the effective config, which is super important. We see the output directory, appId, productName, and crucial files array. Notice this line: files: - filter: - dist/**/* - '!node_modules/**/*' - node_modules/font-list. This files configuration tells electron-builder what to include and exclude from your app's final package. The !node_modules/**/* is a strong instruction to exclude all node_modules by default, except for specific ones like node_modules/font-list. This is a very aggressive exclusion rule, and it's a prime suspect for why modules aren't being found. The next item in files is from: node_modules/better-sqlite3/build/Release to: dist/electron/native filter: - better_sqlite3.node, which correctly tells electron-builder to grab a native module (better-sqlite3) and place it in a specific location. This indicates that some specific dependency handling is in place, but the general node_modules are being actively filtered out.

Next, electron-builder tries to detect the package manager. It correctly identifies pnpm and a workspace root at H:\any-listen for the project located at H:\any-listen\packages\desktop. This confirms we're dealing with a monorepo setup using pnpm, which has its own unique way of managing node_modules (often with symlinks). We also see electron-rebuild kicking in for better-sqlite3, indicating that native dependencies are being handled and compiled correctly for the target Electron version (37.10.3) and architecture (x64). This is a good sign that the native module part is working as expected, but it doesn't solve our general node_modules problem.

Now, here's where it gets really interesting, guys. After packaging and downloading the Electron distribution, we see these critical lines:

• spawning node module collector process command=cmd.exe args=["/c","C:\Users\user\AppData\Local\Temp\t-yrlEHU\pnpm-1.bat","list","--prod","--json","--depth","Infinity","--long"] cwd=H:\any-listen\packages\desktop tempOutputFile=C:\Users\user\AppData\Local\Temp\t-yrlEHU\pnpm-0-output.json • Cannot find package.json for dependency packageName=@any-listen/web path=H:\any-listen\packages\shared\web version=link:../shared/web • Cannot find package.json for dependency packageName=desktop path=H:\any-listen\packages\desktop version=0.4.0-beta.3 • node modules collection complete packageName=any-listen depCount=0 • no node modules found in collection, trying next search directory searchDir=H:\any-listen\packages\desktop attempt=0 • spawning node module collector process ... cwd=H:\any-listen ... • node modules collection complete packageName=any-listen depCount=0 • no node modules returned while searching directories searchDirectories=["","H:\\any-listen"]

These log entries are screaming at us! electron-builder tries to use pnpm list to discover dependencies within your project (H:\any-listen\packages\desktop) and then again from the workspace root (H:\any-listen). However, it hits a snag: Cannot find package.json for dependency. This usually happens when electron-builder (or the underlying pnpm list command in this context) struggles to resolve symlinked dependencies, which are common in pnpm and monorepo setups. The link:../shared/web indicates an internal workspace dependency. If pnpm list can't properly traverse these internal links to find the package.json files, it won't correctly identify the dependencies. Ultimately, both attempts yield depCount=0, leading to the dreaded no node modules found in collection. This is the core issue: electron-builder isn't seeing your node_modules because its dependency collection mechanism, potentially due to the combination of its updated logic, the aggressive files filter, and the pnpm monorepo structure, is failing to correctly enumerate them. The explicit !node_modules/**/* in the files array might be overriding any automatic collection, or electron-builder's new collection logic is simply failing to populate its internal list before the files array is applied.

The Monorepo & pnpm Conundrum: Why This is Tricky

Alright, let's talk about why this particular issue, "no node modules found in collection," becomes extra spicy when you throw a monorepo and pnpm into the mix. If you're using a monorepo, you're likely leveraging workspaces to manage multiple projects within a single repository. This is super efficient for code sharing and unified dependency management. However, each package in your monorepo typically has its own node_modules directory symlinked to a central store managed by pnpm at the root of your workspace.

pnpm, bless its heart, is a fantastic package manager that focuses on efficiency and disk space saving. Unlike npm or yarn (classic versions) that might hoist all dependencies to the root node_modules or duplicate them within each project, pnpm creates a content-addressable store for your modules and then uses symlinks to link them into your project's node_modules folder. So, instead of having direct copies of libraries, your node_modules folders are often full of symbolic links pointing to the actual packages in pnpm's global store or at the workspace root.

This is where the "no node modules found" warning typically stems from. Electron Builder, when it performs its dependency collection, usually expects to find traditional node_modules directories with physical files or easily traversable symlinks. When electron-builder's internal dependency collector (the part that runs pnpm list or similar) encounters pnpm's unique symlinking structure, especially in a monorepo setup where packages might be linked between workspace projects (link:../shared/web), it can get confused. The Cannot find package.json for dependency errors we saw in the logs are a strong indicator of this confusion. The collector might be trying to resolve a path that's a symlink, and its logic might not be robust enough to follow that symlink correctly to find the actual package.json file. This prevents it from building a complete list of your application's production dependencies.

Furthermore, the files configuration in your electron-builder.yaml (or package.json) plays a huge role. In your logs, you have files: - filter: - dist/**/* - '!node_modules/**/*' - node_modules/font-list. The !node_modules/**/* is a very aggressive negative filter, explicitly telling electron-builder to ignore almost all node_modules. While you then try to include specific ones like font-list and better-sqlite3, this initial blanket exclusion can interfere with electron-builder's automatic dependency detection. It's like telling someone to look for apples in a basket, but then also telling them to ignore anything that looks like an apple unless you specifically point to it. This combination of pnpm's symlinks, monorepo workspace paths, and an overly restrictive files configuration often leads to electron-builder simply not seeing the dependencies it needs to bundle, resulting in the dreaded