@ringcentral/sdk requires Node.js polyfills to work in browser

[yslpn]

Problem Description

The @ringcentral/sdk package requires numerous Node.js-specific polyfills to work in browser environments:

• buffer
• process
• crypto-browserify
• stream-browserify
• vm-browserify
• events
• path-browserify
• url

This creates the following issues:

1. Increased bundle size — polyfills add significant code overhead
2. Complex bundler configuration — requires explicit resolve.fallback and ProvidePlugin setup
3. Incompatibility with modern runtimes — Edge Functions, Cloudflare Workers, Deno, and other environments do not support Node.js APIs

Current Configuration

Official recommendation from RingCentral (webpack.js):

plugins: [
    // Workaround for Buffer is undefined:
    new webpack.ProvidePlugin({
        Buffer: ['buffer', 'Buffer'],
    }),
    // Workaround for process is undefined:
    new webpack.ProvidePlugin({
        process: 'process/browser',
    }),
],
resolve: {
    fallback: {
        crypto: require.resolve('crypto-browserify'),
        stream: require.resolve('stream-browserify'),
        vm: require.resolve('vm-browserify'),
        process: require.resolve('process/browser'),
        buffer: require.resolve('buffer'),
        events: require.resolve('events'),
        path: require.resolve('path-browserify'),
        url: require.resolve('url'),
    },
},

Proposed Solution

Migrate to browser APIs that work across all modern runtimes:

Node.js API	Browser Alternative
Buffer	Uint8Array, TextEncoder/TextDecoder
crypto	Web Crypto API (crypto.subtle)
process.env	Build-time inline substitution
stream	ReadableStream/WritableStream (Web Streams API)
events	EventTarget
url	URL (already available in browsers)
path	Simple string operations or remove dependency

Benefits of Migration

1. Universal compatibility — code will work in browsers, Deno, Cloudflare Workers, Vercel Edge, etc.
2. Smaller bundle size — no heavy polyfills required
3. Simplified integration — users don't need to configure their bundler
4. Standards compliance — Web APIs are W3C/WHATWG standards

References

• Current webpack.js in SDK repository
• Web Crypto API
• Web Streams API
• TextEncoder/TextDecoder

[SushilMallRC]

Thank you, @yslpn will check this and share an update here.

[tylerlong]

I don't think there is any easy and quick solution. Lots of code will have to be rewritten and tested before we could release a fix.

In the mean time, please check https://github.com/ringcentral/ringcentral-extensible It's also officially supported. It has way better TypeScript support (typings provided for all requests and responses).
I won't say that it doesn't need any polyfill to run in a browser, but the number of polyfills should be very minimal (fewer than 3, as far as I can tell).

Update:

As I checked right now, @rc-ex/core only needs one polyfill to run in browser: https://github.com/tylerlong/pkce-demo-ts/blob/master/webpack.config.ts#L44

Update again:

@rc-ex/core requires no polyfill to run in browser: https://github.com/tylerlong/pkce-demo-ts/blob/master/webpack.config.ts#L39-L41