Node browser resolution strategy

I’d like to propose a new resolution strategy that builds upon node resolution to support https://github.com/defunctzombie/package-browser-field-spec - node+browser. The core differences is that it reads package.json/browser to select the entry point or module “aliases”. For example, browser can point to a string that is used in place of main when resolving or specific a map of keys to values - where the key is a relative path or a module name and the value is a boolean, relative path or module name.

This module resolution is used in Browserify by default, and can be enabled in Webpack using https://webpack.github.io/docs/configuration.html#resolve-packagealias. It’s the primary way to develop and distribute universal packages that work on node and in browsers.

Edit: It would also be amazing to have the compiler handle this when developing packages so that the aliases are type-checked to be compatible in both environments. For example, it could catch https://github.com/blakeembrey/popsicle/pull/47.

[PatrickJS]

This is also a problem for Angular’s use of Ahead of Time compiler which uses TypeScript’s extensibility feature. When splitting code per platform there must be two paths created

angular2-universal/browser angular2-universal/node

https://github.com/angular/universal-starter/blob/master/src/app/app.browser.module.ts#L3

[daprahamian]

👍 for this.