About nodejs dependencies

[fxzxmic]

zed will download a copy of nodejs itself if it doesn't detect it in the system, is that right?

[SomeoneToIgnore]

It is.

[fxzxmic]

Ok, so one more question, does zed require npm?

[SomeoneToIgnore]

Currently, the answer will be "yes": Zed itself needs neither, but a lot of web tooling (e.g. LSP servers for web languages and tech) are node-dependent and publish their packages on npm registry.

prettier is one of these, and Zed uses it to autoformat its settings.json, so Zed tries to download and install node -> npm -> prettier npm package chain.

Prettier can be turned off in settings.json, same as other web-related plugins and language servers, so it should be possible to have no node or npm involved when running Zed.

[fxzxmic]

Ok, thanks.

[ElysiaMae]

Currently, the answer will be "yes": Zed itself needs neither, but a lot of web tooling (e.g. LSP servers for web languages and tech) are node-dependent and publish their packages on npm registry.

prettier is one of these, and Zed uses it to autoformat its settings.json, so Zed tries to download and install node -> npm -> prettier npm package chain.

Prettier can be turned off in settings.json, same as other web-related plugins and language servers, so it should be possible to have no node or npm involved when running Zed.

Hi, I was wondering if Zed allows for custom paths for Node.js and Prettier?

[SomeoneToIgnore]

Node and npm can be customized, thanks to our contributors:

zed/assets/settings/default.json

Lines 1066 to 1080 in d477cc0

	// By default use a recent system version of node, or install our own.
	// You can override this to use a version of node that is not in $PATH with:
	// {
	// "node": {
	// "path": "/path/to/node"
	// "npm_path": "/path/to/npm" (defaults to node_path/../npm)
	// }
	// }
	// or to ensure Zed always downloads and installs an isolated version of node:
	// {
	// "node": {
	// "ignore_system_version": true,
	// }
	// NOTE: changing this setting currently requires restarting Zed.
	"node": {},

Default, automatic Prettier support tries to detect projects' prettier, if included into package.json and also can be customized via formatter settings:

https://zed.dev/docs/configuring-zed?highlight=prettier#formatter

[iwinux]

~/Library/Application Support/Zed is taking 1GB+ of disk space and growing. I don't want Zed to download anything for me. I can install these LSPs myself.

[thomas-mckay]

Same here. I was about to install zed from the arch repo and saw node and npm were required dependencies. I'd be okay running them from a container for a good reason, but having them forced on my system for non-core features is hard to swallow.