JavaScript
Node.js Compiler Collection

ncc

Simple CLI for compiling a Node.js module into a single file, together with all its dependencies, gcc-style.

Motivation

• Publish minimal packages to npm
• Only ship relevant app code to serverless environments
• Don't waste time configuring bundlers
• Generally faster bootup time and less I/O overhead
• Compiled language-like experience (e.g.: go)

Design goals

• Zero configuration
• Only support Node.js (soon, optionally with TypeScript) codebases
• Make it work as well as possible with the entire Node.js / npm ecosystem

Usage

CLI

$ ncc build input.js -o dist

Outputs the build of input.js into dist/index.js.

$ ncc run input.js

Build to a temporary folder and run the built JS file through Node.js.

Node.js

require('@zeit/ncc')('/path/to/input', {
  minify: true  // default
}).then(({ code, assets }) => {
  console.log(code);
  // assets is an object of asset file names to sources
  // expected relative to the output code (if any)
})

Known issues

• Minification is creating problems
• Native modules are not supported

Caveats

• Files / assets are relocated based on a static evaluator. Dynamic non-statically analyzable asset loads may not work out correctly.
• Dynamic requires are inlined only so far as they are statically analyzable. There may be ways to improve this as discussed in https://github.com/zeit/ncc/issues/41.