@nuxt/module-builder

📦 Nuxt Module Builder

The complete solution to build and ship Nuxt modules.

Features

• Compatible with Nuxt 3 and Nuxt Kit
• Unified build with unjs/unbuild
• Automated build config using last module spec
• Typescript and ESM support
• Auto generated CommonJS stubs
• Auto generated types and shims for @nuxt/schema

We recommend to checkout the Nuxt modules author guide before starting with the module-builder.

Requirements

For a user to use a module generated from module-builder, it's recommended they have:

• Node.js >= 16.x. Latest Node LTS preferred
• Nuxt 3 or Nuxt Bridge. Nuxt 2 is functional but not advised

Quick start

Get started with our module starter:

npx nuxi init -t module my-module

Project structure

The module builder requires a special project structure. You can check out the module template.

src/module.ts

The entrypoint for module definition.

A default export using defineNuxtModule and ModuleOptions type export is expected.

You could also optionally export ModuleHooks or ModuleRuntimeHooks to annotate any custom hooks the module uses.

import { defineNuxtModule } from '@nuxt/kit'

export interface ModuleOptions {
  apiKey: string
}

export interface ModuleHooks {
  'my-module:init': any
}

export interface ModuleRuntimeHooks {
  'my-module:runtime-hook': any
}

export interface ModuleRuntimeConfig {
  PRIVATE_NAME: string
}

export interface ModulePublicRuntimeConfig {
  NAME: string
}

export default defineNuxtModule<ModuleOptions>({
  meta: {
    name: 'my-module',
    configKey: 'myModule'
  },
  defaults: {
    apiKey: 'test'
  },
  async setup (moduleOptions, nuxt) {
    // Write module logic in setup function
  }
})

src/runtime/

Any runtime file and code that we need to provide by module including plugins, composables and server api, should be in this directory.

Each file will be transformed individually using unjs/mkdist to dist/runtime/.

package.json:

A minimum package.json should look like this:

{
  "name": "my-module",
  "license": "MIT",
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "exports": {
    ".": {
      "types": "./dist/types.d.ts",
      "import": "./dist/module.mjs",
      "require": "./dist/module.cjs"
    }
  },
  "main": "./dist/module.cjs",
  "types": "./dist/types.d.ts",
  "files": [
    "dist"
  ],
  "scripts": {
    "prepack": "nuxt-module-build build"
  },
  "dependencies": {
    "@nuxt/kit": "npm:@nuxt/kit-edge@latest"
  },
  "devDependencies": {
    "@nuxt/module-builder": "latest"
  }
}

build.config.ts (optional)

Module builder is essentially a preset for unjs/unbuild, check out the build command for reference.

To customize/extend the unbuild configuration you can add a build.config.ts in the root of your project:

import { defineBuildConfig } from 'unbuild'

export default defineBuildConfig({
  // set additional configuration or customize using hooks
})

Dist files

Module builder generates dist files in dist/ directory:

• module.mjs: Module entrypoint build from src/module
• module.json: Module meta extracted from module.mjs + package.json
• module.cjs: ESM proxy to allow require module in CommonJS context
• types.d.ts: Exported types in addition to shims for nuxt.config auto completion.
• runtime/*: Individually transformed files using unjs/mkdist
  • Javascript and .ts files will be transformed to .js with extracted types on .d.ts file with same name
  • .vue files will be transformed with extracted .d.ts file
  • Other files will be copied as is

💻 Development

• Clone repository
• Enable Corepack using corepack enable
• Install dependencies using pnpm install
• Try building example module using pnpm example:build

License

MIT - Made with 💚