nbin

Fast and robust node.js binary compiler.

WARNING: This project was created for code-server and may provide limited support.

Why was this made? Why not use pkg or nexe?

• Support for native node modules.
• No magic. The user specifies all customization. An example of this is overriding the filesystem.
• First-class support for multiple platforms.

Usage

We highly recommend using webpack to bundle your sources. We do not scan source-files for modules to include.

When running within the binary, your application will have access to a module named nbin.

Two packages are provided:

• @coder/nbin - available as an API to build binaries.
• nbin - ONLY available within your binary.

Example

import { Binary } from "@coder/nbin";

const bin = new Binary({
	mainFile: "out/cli.js",
});

bin.writeFile("out/cli.js", Buffer.from("console.log('hi');"));
const output = bin.bundle();

Forks

child_process.fork works as expected. nbin will treat the compiled binary as the original node binary when the process.send function is available.

Webpack

If you are using webpack to bundle your main, you'll need to externalize modules.

// webpack.config.js

module.exports = {
	...
	external: {
		nbin: "commonjs nbin",
		// Additional modules to exclude
	},
};

Environment

You can pass NODE_OPTIONS.

NODE_OPTIONS="--inspect-brk" ./path/to/bin

Gzip'd JavaScript files are supported to reduce bundle size.