I have some issues deploying a serverless function. First, I use two big packages like google document-ai and aws-rekognition. When I try to deploy using these two, it fails since the .zip becomes too big. If I exclude the node_modules from the deployment, when I test the function it says it does not work. Now, I moved my two packages to use REST API calls, but I still have ‘sharp’ library for image processing, and unfortunately I cannot deploy the node_modules for it, since it’s not compatible from my OSX to Linux. So my question is, do DO functions do npm install, or I always have to sumit the node_modules folder?
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Hey!
You don’t need to upload your node_modules folder manually when deploying to DigitalOcean Functions. As long as you include a valid package.json, DigitalOcean will run npm install --production during deployment for you.
If you’re using native modules like sharp, I think that it’s best to deploy with the --remote-build flag:
doctl serverless deploy . --remote-build
This ensures the Functions service performs a remote build, which usually avoids compatibility issues that can come up when developing on macOS:
https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/functions/reference/build-process/#local-and-remote-builds
That said, sharp and other native modules can still be tricky depending on how they’re bundled. If you continue hitting issues, I’d recommend reaching out to the DigitalOcean support team to dig deeper:
Hope this helps! Let us know how it goes!
- Bobby
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