CommonJS/ESM Support

“makes” supports both CommonJS and ESM code in all the customisable files:

• questions.js
• transforms.js
• before.js
• after.js

The format is handled by Nodejs itself, not “makes”.

• CommonJS: .cjs files or plain .js files.
• ESM: .mjs files or .js files with additional package.json’s "type": "module".

For more information on Nodejs’ support of ESM, please review Nodejs doc Determining module system.

When using 3rd party libs, the CommonJS might be easier to work with, as many 3rd party libs only ships CommonJS code, such as various stream related libs.

Example skeleton makesjs/demo3-enhance-eval esm branch

npx makes makesjs/demo3-enhance-eval#esm

questions.js

To use CommonJS format, use file name questions.js or questions.cjs with following content:

// CommmonJS
module.exports = [
  // list of questions...
];

To use ESM format, use file name questions.mjs or questions.js with additional package.json with "type": "module" (so that Nodejs will treat any JS file in your skeleton with ESM format):

questions.mjs

// ESM
export default [
  // list of questions ...
]

package.json, only needed if you use file name questions.js for ESM code.

{ "type": "module" }

transforms.js

Transforms doesn’t utilise default export, it expects two optional exports: append and prepend.

// Commonjs
exports.append = a_stream_transform;
// or exports.append = [ a list of transforms ];
exports.prepend = a_stream_transform;
// or exports.prepend = [ a list of transforms ];

// ESM
const append = a_stream_transform;
// or const append = [ a list of transforms ];
const prepend = a_stream_transform;
// or const prepend = [ a list of transforms ];
export { append, prepend };

before.js and after.js

// CommmonJS
module.exports = async function (...) {...}

// ESM
export default async function (...) {...}