.babelrc or config package.json is not considered

I’m submitting a bug report

Webpack Version: 4.9.1

Babel Core Version: 7.0.0-beta.49

Babel Loader Version: 8.0.0-beta.3

Please tell us about your environment: Windows 10

Current behavior: babel-loader doesn’t include config options from “.babelrc” or "package.json

Expected/desired behavior: babel-loader uses “.babelrc” or “package.jso”

webpack:

{
        test: /\.js$/,
        loader: 'babel-loader',
        options: {
          babelrc: true,
          cacheDirectory: true
        }
 }

workaround:

{
        test: /\.js$/,
        loader: 'babel-loader',
        options: {
          babelrc: true,
          extends: path.join(__dirname + '/.babelrc'),
          cacheDirectory: true
        }
 }

• What is the expected behavior?

Before I configured babel trough “package.json”. I just regonized this issue because I disabled comments in babel and found comments in my output.

• What is the motivation / use case for changing the behavior?

[felixfbecker]

I’m affected by this too after trying to upgrade everything to v7. I think that this is only happening when transpiling node_modules (which I need to do for a dependency) - I don’t get any errors for the files in my project, but the config is not considered for files in node_modules and I get errors that plugins are missing.

Could it be that because these files are in node_modules, the config search “stops” at the package.json of the dependency, instead of traversing up? Or maybe looking in parent directories is broken in general?

[EvHaus]

I have a similar problem. babel-loader works correctly if the .babelrc is right next to my package.json directory, but if it’s located 1 directory above (I use a monorepo) – then it’s not loaded.

Not sure if that’s intentional or not.

babel-loader@8.0.0-beta.4
@babel/core@7.0.0-beta.51

UPDATE: Our solution was to migrate from .babelrc to babel.config.js which is the new recommended configuration structure for monorepos.