Do I have to commit node_modules in order to run GitLab .gitlab-ci.yml builds?

Question

Trying to create a .gitlab-ci.yml file to do builds in GitLab.

All attempts thus far fail.

Few examples I am able to find and those seem to have node_modules saved to the repository and use of Docker.

I've no knowledge about Docker.

Are Docker and storing node_modules required in order to perform builds on GitLab? (We don't store the node_modules)?

Here is the entirety of the script which is minimalist and does not work.

stages:          # List of stages for jobs, and their order of execution
- build

build-job:       # This job runs in the build stage, which runs first.
  stage: build

  script:
    # - npm run build_def_fouo
    - ng build -c def-fouo
    - echo "Compiling the code..."

With npm I get: npm: command not found

With ng I get: ng: command not found

I'm at a loss.

===updated 05/06/2022

Made a little bit of progress this morning after 51 failed pipelines.

Here is my latest script but I'm reviewing the logs and will update with information to debug...

image: node:14.17.0

cache:
  paths:
    - node_modules/

stages:            # List of stages for jobs, and their order of execution
  - setup
  - build

Test:
  stage: setup
  script:
    - npm install  # or `npm install` or whatever you use to install deps

Builder:
  stage: build
                  
  script:          # ... your other build steps here
    - npm run build_def_fouo

=== Error Log

Error: node_modules/ng2-material-dropdown/src/modules/components/button/ng2-dropdown-button.d.ts:18:21 - error TS2694: Namespace '"/builds/elijah.d.j.marshall/ghostshot/node_modules/@angular/core/core"' has no exported member 'ɵɵFactoryDeclaration'.

Answer 1

Generally, you would install your dependencies as part of your job. You could also form a custom docker image for building your software, but this is not necessary.

build-job:
  stage: build
  image: node:lts # this image includes npm/yarn/etc
                  # you can use different tags for different versions
  script:
    - yarn install  # or `npm install` or whatever you use to install deps
    # ... your other build steps here

You can find examples for nodejs and many other scenarios in the examples documentation.