electron:build command does not copy project package.json - no node modules installed

When running electron:build, the project package.json in the root directory is not copied to the dist_electron/bundled folder and no dependencies are installed. Running the built executable results in a lot of module <name> not found errors in the console.

Steps to reproduce the behavior:

1. Create a new Vue 2 project with the Vue CLI -> vue create <name>
2. Add this plugin as per the docs -> vue add electron-builder
3. Install any node package. For example, yarn add node-fetch
4. Use this package in any of the source files.
5. Build the app with yarn electron:build
6. Run the built .exe and check the console. You will see a missing module for that package error. To further verify this, extracting the app.asar in the dist_electron/win-unpacked/resources folder and opening the output folder will show you none of your installed node modules in the dependencies section of your package.json are copied over.

Expected behavior All packages in the dependencies section of the project package.json should be copied over when building the project.

Environment:

• Windows 10
• Yarn (but same problem with NPM)
• “vue-cli-plugin-electron-builder”: “~2.0.0-rc.6”
• “electron”: “^11.0.0”

Additional context I original encountered this error in a project I had been working on for months and it appeared within the last couple days. Tried this with just a basic Vue project created with the CLI and only modified the background.js file to use the node-fetch package I had installed. Same problem.

[nklayman]

Yeah, you should use es6 import statements actually. Webpack automatically bundles all your deps together for you.

[nklayman]

Try adding a vue.config.js file with this in it:

module.exports = {
  pluginOptions: {
    electronBuilder: {
      externals: ['node-fetch']
    }
  }
}

See the docs on native modules for more details on the externals property.