`require is not defined` when importing a node_module that imports a CSS file

[blimmer]

Describe the bug

When importing a react component that imports a CSS file, vite fails with the message:

Uncaught ReferenceError: require is not defined

If you dig into the stack trace, you'll see that the require statement is from an imported .css file (line 8 in this image):

This issue:

• Does not occur when running with create-react-app or storybook
• Occurs with any NPM dependency that imports a .css file. We discovered this issue with an internal component library, originally, but were able to reproduce it with react-date-picker, which also imports a .css file.

I expected this to work, as the documentation references being able to manage imported static assets like this: https://vitejs.dev/guide/features.html#css. But, perhaps there's an issue when the CSS import occurs in a vendor/node_module.

Reproduction

https://github.com/blimmer/show-vite-issue

git clone https://github.com/blimmer/show-vite-issue.git
cd show-vite-issue
npm ci
npm run dev

You'll observe the error in the console when you visit localhost:3000:

System Info

Output of npx envinfo --system --npmPackages vite,@vitejs/plugin-vue --binaries --browsers:

  System:
    OS: macOS 11.3.1
    CPU: (12) x64 Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-9750H CPU @ 2.60GHz
    Memory: 32.71 MB / 32.00 GB
    Shell: 5.8 - /bin/zsh
  Binaries:
    Node: 16.1.0 - ~/.asdf/installs/nodejs/16.1.0/bin/node
    Yarn: 1.22.10 - /usr/local/bin/yarn
    npm: 7.11.2 - ~/.asdf/installs/nodejs/16.1.0/bin/npm
    Watchman: 4.9.0 - /usr/local/bin/watchman
  Browsers:
    Firefox: 89.0
  npmPackages:
    vite: ^2.3.0 => 2.3.2

Used package manager: npm

Logs

 vite build --debug
  vite:config bundled config file loaded in 84ms +0ms
  vite:config using resolved config: {
  vite:config   plugins: [
  vite:config     'alias',
  vite:config     'react-refresh',
  vite:config     'vite:dynamic-import-polyfill',
  vite:config     'vite:resolve',
  vite:config     'vite:html',
  vite:config     'vite:css',
  vite:config     'vite:esbuild',
  vite:config     'vite:json',
  vite:config     'vite:wasm',
  vite:config     'vite:worker',
  vite:config     'vite:asset',
  vite:config     'vite:define',
  vite:config     'vite:css-post',
  vite:config     'vite:build-html',
  vite:config     'commonjs',
  vite:config     'vite:data-uri',
  vite:config     'rollup-plugin-dynamic-import-variables',
  vite:config     'vite:import-analysis',
  vite:config     'vite:esbuild-transpile',
  vite:config     'vite:terser',
  vite:config     'vite:reporter'
  vite:config   ],
  vite:config   build: {
  vite:config     target: [ 'es2019', 'edge88', 'firefox78', 'chrome87', 'safari13.1' ],
  vite:config     outDir: 'dist',
  vite:config     assetsDir: 'assets',
  vite:config     assetsInlineLimit: 4096,
  vite:config     cssCodeSplit: true,
  vite:config     sourcemap: false,
  vite:config     rollupOptions: {},
  vite:config     commonjsOptions: { include: [Array], extensions: [Array] },
  vite:config     minify: 'terser',
  vite:config     terserOptions: {},
  vite:config     cleanCssOptions: {},
  vite:config     write: true,
  vite:config     emptyOutDir: null,
  vite:config     manifest: false,
  vite:config     lib: false,
  vite:config     ssr: false,
  vite:config     ssrManifest: false,
  vite:config     brotliSize: true,
  vite:config     chunkSizeWarningLimit: 500,
  vite:config     watch: null
  vite:config   },
  vite:config   configFile: '/private/tmp/show-vite-issue/vite.config.ts',
  vite:config   configFileDependencies: [ 'vite.config.ts' ],
  vite:config   inlineConfig: {
  vite:config     root: undefined,
  vite:config     base: undefined,
  vite:config     mode: undefined,
  vite:config     configFile: undefined,
  vite:config     logLevel: undefined,
  vite:config     clearScreen: undefined,
  vite:config     build: {}
  vite:config   },
  vite:config   root: '/private/tmp/show-vite-issue',
  vite:config   base: '/',
  vite:config   resolve: { dedupe: undefined, alias: [ [Object] ] },
  vite:config   publicDir: '/private/tmp/show-vite-issue/public',
  vite:config   cacheDir: '/private/tmp/show-vite-issue/node_modules/.vite',
  vite:config   command: 'build',
  vite:config   mode: 'production',
  vite:config   isProduction: true,
  vite:config   server: { fsServe: { root: '/private/tmp/show-vite-issue', strict: false } },
  vite:config   env: { BASE_URL: '/', MODE: 'production', DEV: false, PROD: true },
  vite:config   assetsInclude: [Function: assetsInclude],
  vite:config   logger: {
  vite:config     hasWarned: false,
  vite:config     info: [Function: info],
  vite:config     warn: [Function: warn],
  vite:config     warnOnce: [Function: warnOnce],
  vite:config     error: [Function: error],
  vite:config     clearScreen: [Function: clearScreen]
  vite:config   },
  vite:config   createResolver: [Function: createResolver],
  vite:config   optimizeDeps: { esbuildOptions: { keepNames: undefined } }
  vite:config } +5ms
vite v2.3.2 building for production...
✓ 121 modules transformed.
dist/assets/favicon.17e50649.svg   1.49kb
dist/assets/logo.ecc203fb.svg      2.61kb
dist/index.html                    0.57kb
dist/assets/index.0673ce28.css     0.76kb / brotli: 0.40kb
dist/assets/index.2146aa06.js      0.94kb / brotli: 0.38kb
dist/assets/vendor.d4d14e00.css    4.08kb / brotli: 0.91kb
dist/assets/vendor.771a2d12.js     228.14kb / brotli: 53.29kb

---

Before submitting the issue, please make sure you do the following

• Read the Contributing Guidelines.
• Read the docs.
• Check that there isn't already an issue that reports the same bug to avoid creating a duplicate.
• Provide a description in this issue that describes the bug.
• Make sure this is a Vite issue and not a framework-specific issue. For example, if it's a Vue SFC related bug, it should likely be reported to https://github.com/vuejs/vue-next instead.
• Check that this is a concrete bug. For Q&A open a GitHub Discussion or join our Discord Chat Server.

[Shinigami92]

Vite doesn't use require, did you try import instead?

import "react-calendar/dist/Calendar.css";

[stephenh]

@Shinigami92 the upstream project (react-date-picker) is a dependency we don't control, and is still shipping CommonJS/require based code/output.

So we expected vitejs to be able to (while ESM-ifying this dependency) rewrite the require-a-css-file statement just like it is rewriting the require-a-JS file statements.

Is this possible? As far as we understand, vite is capable of bundling/importing CSS directly within our application code, with an import just like you gave, but we need to have the import (and require --> import rewrite) happen in this node_modules/react-date-picker dependency.

[hronro]

as a workaround, you can disable the require call in react-date-picker and try import the css file in your code:

index.html

<head>
<script>window.require = () => {}</script>
<script type="module" src="src/main.js"></script>
</head>

src/main.js

import 'react-calendar/dist/Calendar.css'

// ...

[stephenh]

@hronro yeah, we're using patch-package to do basically that for now (deleting that line and importing the css ourselves). Thanks for the input!

[stephenh]

@Shinigami92 you'd added the bug: upstream label; this is not a bug in the upstream library. This bug is that vitejs doesn't support dependencies that import css files.

[ygj6]

You can try this plugin https://github.com/originjs/vite-plugins/tree/main/packages/vite-plugin-commonjs

import { defineConfig } from 'vite'
import reactRefresh from '@vitejs/plugin-react-refresh'
import { esbuildCommonjs } from '@originjs/vite-plugin-commonjs'

export default defineConfig({
  plugins: [reactRefresh()],
  optimizeDeps:{
    esbuildOptions:{
      plugins:[
        esbuildCommonjs(['react-calendar','react-date-picker'])
      ]
    }
  }
})

[stephenh]

@ygj6 thanks for the link to that plugin! I have a naive question, but I thought that vitejs did "automatic ESM-ification" of all of my dependencies automatically (via esbuild)? Or is that not right?

Just wondering why I'd have to configure the vite-plugin-commonjs plugin for these specific dependencies.

Thanks!

[ygj6]

Vite use esbuild for pre-bundling. However, esbuild will not transform require evanw/esbuild#506.
The vite-plugin-commonjs plugin will replace require to import, which can solve most scenarios (NOT All).