import/no-unresolved requires installed node_modules

It seems that import/no-unresolved will complain for valid import statements if node_modules isn’t present or it’s outdated.

When using a complex build system, npm install is often executed inside a build system sandbox and node_modules might never be present in the original repository where eslint runs (e.g. through IDEs).

Is there a way to prevent import/no-unresolved from complaining about valid import statements for third-party packages that are listed in package.json? I looked at the import/no-extraneous-dependencies rule but it doesn’t report any errors if the package cannot be resolved in the first place.

[ljharb]

Not in the js ecosystem it’s not; it’s also a bad practice regardless of how often it’s used.

I don’t think it makes any sense for any js tool to not assume npm install has been ran.

[sebastian-nowak]

Hmm, that’s not really true. In a large multi-language monorepo it’s common to have eslint installed just once (usually in /third_party/bin/eslint or similar) and some build system (such as Bazel or Buck) takes care of running it for various isolated packages. In such scenario, eslint isn’t installed globally but it’s not in the package’s node_modules either. It’s invalid to assume that node_modules will be present, it might be managed by a build system.