Debian – NestJs service can not find generated prisma orm module in NX monorepo in VSCode dev container

For a while now I’m developing services inside a Visual Studio Code devcontainer with NX as a library for working with mono repos. For the database layer I’m using Prisma ORM and use it to run migrations and generate the types to be used.

Lately the development container was giving issues to I did a clean rebuild on the container. After the install, I ran

for target in 'migrate generate-types'; do
    yarn nx run-many --target $target
done

generate-types is defined as the command prisma generate and migrate is prisma generate dev.

This will migrate all projects and generate all the files. Database is being migrated, types are present, so that works.

Everything is installed, all looks fine until I try to start the service. I get this error:

Error: Cannot find module '/workspaces/mono-repo/node_modules/@prisma/client/number'
    at createEsmNotFoundErr (node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:1171:15)
    at finalizeEsmResolution (node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:1159:15)
    at resolveExports (node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:584:14)
    at Function.Module._findPath (node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:658:31)
    at Function.Module._resolveFilename (node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:1120:27)
    at Function.Module._load (node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:975:27)
    at Function.Module._load (/workspaces/mono-repo/node_modules/@nx/js/src/executors/node/node-with-require-overrides.js:18:31)
    at Module.require (node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:1225:19)
    at require (node:internal/modules/helpers:177:18)
    at Array.Object.defineProperty.value (/workspaces/mono-repo/dist/apps/numbering/main.js:266:18)

I found out that yarn nx runs the latest nx version, so I’ve updated the packages.json but the problem doesn’t go away.

The directory /workspaces/mono-repo/node_modules/@prisma/client/number does contain files:

$ ls /workspaces/mono-repo/node_modules/@prisma/client/number
default.d.ts  edge.d.ts  index-browser.js  index.js                                      package.json  schema.prisma  wasm.js
default.js    edge.js    index.d.ts        libquery_engine-debian-openssl-3.0.x.so.node  runtime       wasm.d.ts

I did ran the migrate and generate types command more often before rebuilding the development container and that gave no issues. But suddenly after a Rebuild without cache the problem came up.

This is currently with every service that is using the Prisma ORM.

These are the packages that are loaded with package.json.

"dependencies": {
    "@azure/storage-blob": "^12.17.0",
    "@bull-board/hapi": "^5.9.1",
    "@bull-board/koa": "^5.9.1",
    "@bull-board/ui": "^5.9.1",
    "@golevelup/nestjs-rabbitmq": "^4.0.0",
    "@nestjs/axios": "^3.0.1",
    "@nestjs/bull": "^10.0.1",
    "@nestjs/bullmq": "^10.0.1",
    "@nestjs/cache-manager": "^2.1.1",
    "@nestjs/common": "^10.2.8",
    "@nestjs/config": "^3.1.1",
    "@nestjs/core": "^10.2.8",
    "@nestjs/microservices": "^10.2.8",
    "@nestjs/passport": "^10.0.2",
    "@nestjs/platform-express": "^10.2.8",
    "@nestjs/schedule": "^3.0.4",
    "@prisma/client": "^5.8.1",
    "axios": "^1.6.2",
    "bull": "^4.12.2",
    "bullmq": "^5.1.3",
    "cache-manager": "^5.2.4",
    "chokidar": "^3.5.3",
    "class-transformer": "^0.5.1",
    "class-validator": "^0.14.0",
    "cron": "2.4.4",
    "date-fns": "^3.2.0",
    "fs-extra": "^11.1.1",
    "global": "^4.4.0",
    "mime-types": "^2.1.35",
    "minio": "^7.1.3",
    "nest-winston": "^1.9.4",
    "nestjs-minio": "^2.5.4",
    "passport": "^0.7.0",
    "passport-http-bearer": "^1.0.1",
    "passport-local": "^1.0.0",
    "prompts": "^2.4.2",
    "reflect-metadata": "^0.2.1",
    "rxjs": "^7.8.0",
    "sharp": "^0.33.2",
    "slugify": "^1.6.6",
    "tsconfig-paths": "^4.2.0",
    "tslib": "^2.6.2",
    "winston": "^3.11.0",
    "winston-daily-rotate-file": "^4.7.1"
  },
  "devDependencies": {
    "@nestjs/schematics": "^10.0.3",
    "@nestjs/testing": "^10.2.8",
    "@nx-tools/nx-prisma": "^5.1.0",
    "@nx/eslint-plugin": "17.3.1",
    "@nx/jest": "17.3.1",
    "@nx/js": "17.3.1",
    "@nx/linter": "17.3.1",
    "@nx/nest": "17.3.1",
    "@nx/node": "17.3.1",
    "@nx/webpack": "17.3.1",
    "@nx/workspace": "17.3.1",
    "@swc-node/register": "~1.6.7",
    "@swc/core": "~1.3.104",
    "@types/fs-extra": "^11.0.4",
    "@types/jest": "^29.5.8",
    "@types/mime-types": "^2.1.4",
    "@types/node": "~20.11.5",
    "@types/passport-http-bearer": "^1.0.40",
    "@types/passport-local": "^1.0.38",
    "@typescript-eslint/eslint-plugin": "^6.10.0",
    "@typescript-eslint/parser": "^6.10.0",
    "eslint": "~8.56.0",
    "eslint-config-prettier": "9.1.0",
    "jest": "^29.7.0",
    "jest-environment-node": "^29.7.0",
    "nx": "^17.3.1",
    "prettier": "^3.2.4",
    "prisma": "^5.8.1",
    "ts-jest": "^29.1.0",
    "ts-node": "10.9.2",
    "typescript": "~5.3.3"
  }

So in packages.json nx is still the previous version. As I said, an update of that didn’t solve the problem.

Why does it say it’s missing the module, even when there are files and what can I do to solve this?

Edit:
I’ve got a workaround now:

• Added to paths in tsconfig.base.json: "@database/number": ["node_modules/@prisma/client/number"]
• Changed export { Prisma } from '@prisma/client/number'; to export { Prisma } from '@database/number'; where the errors occurred.

When I do this, the application starts. Why this works and the original doesn’t I don’t know.