Noticed the preliminary node/js support in 2.17.*.dev! Is there a blog post or documentation yet on how to write BUILD files for this new subsystem? If not, looking forward to the announcement 🙂.

Unfortunately not, and I don't think I'll work on this in the 2.17 cycle. Please consider the

package_json

powered backend stuff as very alpha, I'm not ready to commit to the current interface (including BUILD symbols) until there's support for package managers other than npm 🙂

Fair enough. See my recent comment here for what we're doing in the meantime, but very much looking forward to native support for npm/js in the future! https://pantsbuild.slack.com/archives/C046T6T9U/p1680697325350049?thread_ts=1674580234.158039&cid=C046T6T9U

I do not want to be too discouraging either, the workflow you describe is almost exactly the current

node_build_script

feature of the

nodejs

backend. It's a less versatile than

adhoc_tool

but sandboxed and cache aware

resource

generator.

Good to hear. I also did not know about

adhoc_tool

. Does it resolve the two issues with

shell_command

(generate

resources

instead of

files

and cache results instead of expecting side-effects)?

No, adhoc_tool produces

files

. As for the caching, I don't know.