serverless-esbuild

💨 serverless-esbuild

Serverless Framework plugin for zero-config JavaScript and TypeScript code bundling using promising fast & furious esbuild bundler and minifier

Features

• Zero-config: Works out of the box without the need to install any additional plugins
• Works with Typescript and Javascript projects
• Guaranteed to work in Node.js v18 and higher environments
• Supports sls package, sls deploy, sls deploy function
• Integrates with Serverless Invoke Local & serverless-offline

Table of Contents

• Install
• Configuration
  • Examples
  • Options
    • Default Esbuild Options
    • Packager Options
    • Watch Options
• Supported Runtimes
• Advanced Configuration
  • Including Extra Files
  • External Dependencies
  • Esbuild Plugins
• Usage
  • Automatic Compilation
  • Serverless Offline
    • Serverless Dynamodb Local
  • Invoke Local
• External Tools
• Contributors

Install

# install `serverless-esbuild` and `esbuild`
yarn add --dev serverless-esbuild esbuild
# or
npm install -D serverless-esbuild esbuild
# or
pnpm install -D serverless-esbuild esbuild

Add the following plugin to your serverless.yml:

plugins:
  - serverless-esbuild

Configuration

By default, no configuration is required, but you can override the default behavior via the custom.esbuild section in the serverless.yml file.

custom:
  esbuild:
    bundle: true
    minify: false

Examples

See example folder for some example configurations.

Options

Option	Description	Default
Esbuild Options	This plugin can take almost any Esbuild Javascript Build Option.	Default Esbuild Options
concurrency	The number of concurrent bundle operations to run at once. eg. 8. NOTE: This can be memory intensive and could produce slower builds.	Infinity
zipConcurrency	The number of concurrent zip operations to run at once. eg. 8. NOTE: This can be memory intensive and could produce slower builds.	Infinity
exclude	An array of dependencies to exclude from the Lambda. This is passed to the esbuild external option. Set to * to disable packaging node_modules	['aws-sdk']
installExtraArgs	Optional arguments passed to npm or yarn for external dependency resolution. eg. ['--legacy-peer-deps'] for npm v7+ to use legacy peerDependency resolution behavior	[]
keepOutputDirectory	Keeps the .esbuild output folder. Useful for debugging.	false
nativeZip	Uses the system's zip executable to create archives. NOTE: This will produce non-deterministic archives which causes a Serverless deployment update on every deploy.	false
outputBuildFolder	The output folder for Esbuild builds within the work folder. You will also need to manually override the watch ignore config if used.	'.build'
outputWorkFolder	The output folder for this plugin where all the bundle preparation is done. You will also need to manually override the watch ignore config if used.	'.esbuild'
outputFileExtension	The file extension used for the bundled output file. This will override the esbuild outExtension option	'.js'
packagePath	Path to the package.json file for external dependency resolution.	'./package.json'
packager	Packager to use for external dependency resolution. Values: npm, yarn, pnpm	'npm'
packagerOptions	Extra options for packagers for external dependency resolution.	Packager Options
watch	Watch options for serverless-offline.	Watch Options
skipBuild	Avoid rebuilding lambda artifacts in favor of reusing previous build artifacts.	false
skipRebuild	A boolean defining whether rebuild is avoided. Generally rebuild produces faster builds but in some context scenarios with many lambdas or low memory computer (like Github Actions) it can cause memory leaks.	false
skipBuildExcludeFns	An array of lambda names that will always be rebuilt if skipBuild is set to true and bundling individually. This is helpful for dynamically generated functions like serverless-plugin-warmup.	[]
stripEntryResolveExtensions	A boolean that determines if entrypoints using custom file extensions provided in the resolveExtensions ESbuild setting should be stripped of their custom extension upon packing the final bundle for that file. Example: myLambda.custom.ts would result in myLambda.js instead of myLambda.custom.js.
disposeContext	An option to disable the disposal of the context.(Functions can override the global disposeContext configuration by specifying their own disposeContext option in their individual configurations.)	true

Default Esbuild Options

The following esbuild options are automatically set.

Option	Default	Notes
bundle	true	Esbuild requires this for use with external
entryPoints	N/A	Cannot be overridden
outDir	N/A	Cannot be overridden
platform	'node'	Set format to esm to enable ESM support
target	'node18'	We dynamically set this. See Supported Runtimes
watch	N/A	Cannot be overridden

Packager Options

Option	Description	Default
scripts	A string or array of scripts to be executed, currently only supports 'scripts' for npm, pnpm and yarn	undefined
noInstall	[Yarn only] A boolean that deactivates the install step	false
ignoreLockfile	[Yarn, npm only] A boolean to bypass lockfile validation, typically paired with external dependencies because we generate a new package.json with only the externalized dependencies.	false

Watch Options

Option	Description	Default
pattern	An anymatch-compatible definition for the watcher to respond to	./**/*.(js|ts) (watches all .js and .ts files)
ignore	An anymatch-compatible definition for the watcher to ignore	['.esbuild', 'dist', 'node_modules', '.build']
chokidar	Any Chokidar option	{ ignoreInitial: true }

Function Options

Option	Description	Default
skipEsbuild	Set this property to true on a function definition to skip esbuild	undefined

Supported Runtimes

This plugin will automatically set the esbuild target for the following supported Serverless runtimes:

AWS

Runtime	Target
nodejs22.x	node22
nodejs20.x	node20
nodejs18.x	node18
nodejs16.x	node16
nodejs14.x	node14
nodejs12.x	node12

Google

This plugin is compatible with the serverless-google-cloudfunctions plugin, and will set the runtimes accordingly.

Runtime	Target
nodejs24	node24
nodejs22	node22
nodejs20	node20
nodejs18	node18
nodejs16	node16
nodejs14	node14
nodejs12	node12

Azure

This plugin is compatible with the serverless-azure-functions plugin, and will set the runtimes accordingly.

Runtime	Target
nodejs18	node18
nodejs16	node16
nodejs14	node14
nodejs12	node12

Please Note When using this package in conjunction with the serverless-azure-functions plugin, the following additional configuration is required to ensure function apps are built correctly:

package:
	patterns: ["host.json", "**/function.json"],

Non-Node functions

If you wish to use this plugin alongside non Node functions like Python or functions with images, this plugin will automatically ignore any function which does not contain a handler or use a supported Node.js runtime.

Note: If you are using Python functions with Serverless Offline you will need to change the outputWorkFolder and outputBuildFolder to folder names without fullstops.

Advanced Configuration

Config file

Esbuild configuration can be defined by a config file.

custom:
  esbuild:
    config: './esbuild.config.js'

// esbuild.config.js
module.exports = (serverless) => ({
  external: ['lodash'],
  plugins: [],
});

Including Extra Files

Serverless Package Configuration will behave in the same way as native packaging. You can use patterns, include and exclude to include extra files into your bundles.

External Dependencies

Packages that are marked as external and exist in the package.json's dependencies will be installed and included with your build under node_modules. You can customize this with a number of options.

custom:
  esbuild:
    external:
      - lodash
    packager: yarn
    packagePath: absolute/path/to/package.json
    packagerOptions:
      scripts:
        - echo 'Hello World!'
        - rm -rf node_modules
    installExtraArgs:
      - '--legacy-peer-deps'

To easily mark all the dependencies in package.json as external, you can utilize esbuild-node-externals plugin.

To mark one or more individual packages as external, use the following configuration:

custom:
  esbuild:
    external:
      - 'my-package-name'
      - 'another-package-name'

Esbuild Plugins

Note: The Esbuild plugins API is still experimental

You can configure esbuild plugins by passing a plugins' configuration file:

custom:
  esbuild:
    plugins: plugins.js

The plugins' configuration file must be a javascript file exporting an array of plugins (see examples/individually/plugins.js for a dummy plugin example):

let myPlugin = {
  name: 'my-plugin',
  setup(build) {
    // plugin implementation
  },
};

// default export should be an array of plugins
module.exports = [myPlugin];

or a function that accepts serverless instance and returns an array of plugins (see issue #168 for an example):

module.exports = (serverless) => {
  const myPlugin = {
    name: 'my-plugin',
    setup(build) {
      // plugin implementation with `serverless` instance access
      console.log('sls custom options', serverless.service.custom);
    },
  };

  // an array of plugins must be returned
  return [myPlugin];
};

Usage

Automatic compilation

As long as the plugin is properly installed, all regular Serverless operations sls package, sls deploy, sls deploy function, sls invoke local, sls offline will automatically compile using serverless-esbuild.

Specify a custom entrypoint for a function

You can specify a custom entrypoint for ESBuild by specifying the esbuildEntrypoint field in your function definition.

export const myLambdaFunction = {
  handler: '/opt/nodejs/node_modules/my_custom_extension/handler.handler',
  esbuildEntrypoint: './handler.main',
};

Serverless Offline

The plugin integrates very well with serverless-offline to simulate AWS Lambda and AWS API Gateway locally.

Add the plugins to your serverless.yml file and make sure that serverless-esbuild precedes serverless-offline as the order is important:

plugins: ...
  - serverless-esbuild
  ...
  - serverless-offline
  ...

Run serverless offline or serverless offline start to start the Lambda/API simulation.

In comparison to serverless offline, the start command will fire an init and a end lifecycle hook which is needed for serverless-offline and e.g. serverless-dynamodb-local to switch off resources (see below)

Automatic compilation is available while using the plugin with serverless-offline.

custom:
  esbuild:
    watch:
      pattern: ['src/**/*.ts'] # match only typescript files in src directory
      ignore: ['temp/**/*']

Note: When overriding the ignore pattern, remember to ignore .build directory to avoid endless compilation.

Serverless Dynamodb Local

Configure your service the same as mentioned above, but additionally add the serverless-dynamodb-local plugin as follows:

plugins:
  - serverless-esbuild
  - serverless-dynamodb-local
  - serverless-offline

Run serverless offline start.

Invoke Local

This plugin supports the Serverless Invoke Local functionality and will automatically compile the selected function.

External Tools

• serverless-analyze-bundle-plugin: a plugin that allow users to analyze the bundle of a lambda

Contributors

Victor Korzunin 💬 💻 📖 💡 🤔 🚇 🚧 🔌 📆 👀 ⚠️ 🔧	Loup Topalian 💬 💻 📖 🚇 🚧 🔌	Sam Chung 💬 💻 📖 💡 🚇 🚧 🔌 👀 🔧	Vamsi Dharmavarapu 💻 📖 💡 🚇 🚧	Eric 💻 🤔 🚧 🚇 👀	Chris 💻 🤔	Martín Acosta 💻
Tony Tyrrell 💻	Matt Jennings 💻	Misha Bruml 💻	François Farge 💻	Sam Hulick 📖	Troy Ready 💻	subash adhikari 💻
Dan Ionescu 💻	gurushida 💻	nickygb 💻	Jiri Spac 💻	gavynriebau 📖	Adrien Cacciaguerra 📖	lulzneko 💻
AOKI Yuuto 💻	Thomas Aribart 🤔	Kory Hutchison 💻 🤔	Chris Hutchinson 💻	Fredrik Möllerstrand 💻	Sander Kooger 💻	Adam Swift 💻
Florian Mayer 💻	Zach Levi 💻

Inspired by serverless-plugin-typescript and serverless-webpack

Similar packages

Other packages similar to serverless-esbuild

serverless-webpack

The serverless-webpack plugin integrates Webpack into the Serverless Framework. It allows for bundling, minification, and transpilation of JavaScript and TypeScript code. Compared to serverless-esbuild, serverless-webpack offers more extensive configuration options but may have slower build times.

serverless-bundle

The serverless-bundle plugin is a zero-config plugin that uses Webpack and Babel to bundle your Serverless functions. It simplifies the setup process by providing sensible defaults. While it is easier to use, it may not offer the same level of customization as serverless-esbuild.

serverless-plugin-typescript

The serverless-plugin-typescript plugin adds TypeScript support to the Serverless Framework. It compiles TypeScript to JavaScript before deployment. Unlike serverless-esbuild, it does not bundle the code, which may result in larger deployment packages.