Why Common JS and not ESM?

[lucas11222]

Becuse the thing is. I use bolt and i wanna to use an libery. The thing is the libery is only on ESM and not common, Why it uses Common js?

[zimeg]

Hey @lucas11222! 👋 Thanks for raising this question!

We've so far avoided ESM support to remain compatible with older versions of Node from what I understand, but it might be a good time to soon revisit this.

🔗 https://nodejs.org/docs/latest-v20.x/api/esm.html#modules-ecmascript-modules

ECMAScript modules are the official standard format to package JavaScript code for reuse.

Node.js 20 - the current maintenance version - marks ECMAScript modules as stable which should give us confidence in preferring this syntax.

Let's mark this as an enhancement for the next major version, alongside discussion for other thoughts!

Related issue: #2455, slackapi/node-slack-sdk#545, slackapi/node-slack-sdk#1335

[zimeg]

I'm also curious about the build related errors being found in the meantime too? I've found @slack/bolt can be used in projects with ESM but that might be specific to setups 🤖

[lucas11222]

I'm also curious about the build related errors being found in the meantime too? I've found @slack/bolt can be used in projects with ESM but that might be specific to setups 🤖

so i aready tried and it dosent work and the error says that "maybe is a common js module?"

[zimeg]

🗣️ @malewis5 shared an awesome contribution in #2632 for improved App imports and also a comment we might find inspiration from in future efforts:

Here is a useful tool to check these issues: npx --yes @arethetypeswrong/cli --from-npm @slack/bolt -f json

{
  "problems": {
    "NamedExports": [
      {
        "kind": "NamedExports",
        "implementationFileName": "/node_modules/@slack/bolt/dist/index.js",
        "typesFileName": "/node_modules/@slack/bolt/dist/index.d.ts",
        "isMissingAllNamed": false,
        "missing": [
          "App",
          "Logger",
          "ExpressReceiver",
          "SocketModeReceiver",
          "HTTPReceiver",
          "AwsLambdaReceiver",
          "Installation",
          "InstallURLOptions",
          "InstallationQuery",
          "InstallationStore",
          "StateStore",
          "InstallProviderOptions"
        ]
      }
    ]
  }
}

To best support ESM I'm thinking we should export these for developers to consume "named" imports. At the moment I'm unsure if default exports or these unnamed exports should still be surfaced?

Keeping this issue with #2644 for now with hopes that a standard method is found! 👾

[grantjoy]

ESM, please!