My tsconfig.json cannot find a module in my node_modules directory, not sure what is wrong - node.js

Question

I have the following hierarchy:
dist/
|- BuildTasks/
|- CustomTask/
- CustomTask.js
node_modules/
source/
|- BuildTasks/
|- CustomTask/
- CustomTask.ts
- tsconfig.json
Additionally, I am trying to create a VSTS Task extension for internal (private) usage. Originally, I had my tsconfig.json at my root directory, and everything worked just fine on my local machine. The problem is that a VSTS Extension requires all the files to be included in the same directory as the task folder itself. See https://github.com/Microsoft/vsts-task-lib/issues/274 for more information:
you need to publish a self contained task folder. the agent doesnt run
npm install to restore your dependencies.
Originally, I had a this problem solved by include a step to copy the entire node_modules directory into each Task folder, in this case my CustomTask folder which contains my JS file. But, this seems a bit much considering that not every task I am writing has the same module requirements.
My idea was to create a tsconfig.json in each of the Task folders which would specify to create a single output file containing all of the dependent modules, but unfortunately it is not working:
{
"compilerOptions": {
"baseUrl": ".",
"target": "ES6",
"module": "system",
"strict": true,
"rootDir": ".",
"outFile": "../../../dist/BuildTasks/CustomTask/CustomTask.js",
"paths": {
"*" : ["../../../node_modules/*"]
}
}
}
Prior to adding the "paths", I was getting the following errors:
error TS2307: Cannot find module 'vsts-task-lib/task'.
error TS2307: Cannot find module 'moment'.
After adding the paths, I still get the error that it cannot find the module 'moment', which is in my node_modules directory. Also, when I look at the output JS it seems that it didn't include the 'vsts-tasks-lib' code necessary, maybe because it still had an error in regards to the 'moment' module? Not sure what I missed?

Answer 1

Using webpack to compile JavaScript modules, simple sample:
webpack.config.js:
const path = require('path');
module.exports = {
entry: './testtask.ts',
module: {
rules: [
{
test: /\.tsx?$/,
use: 'ts-loader',
exclude: /node_modules/
}
]
},
resolve: {
extensions: ['.tsx', '.ts', '.js']
},
output: {
filename: 'bundle.js',
path: path.resolve(__dirname, 'dist')
},
node: {
fs: 'empty'
},
target: 'node'
};
After that, there are just bundle.js and task.json in task folder.
Update： sample code in testtask.ts:
import tl = require('vsts-task-lib/task');
import fs = require('fs');
console.log('Set variable================');
tl.setVariable('varCode1', 'code1');
tl.setTaskVariable('varTaskCode1', 'taskCode1');
var taskVariables = tl.getVariables();
console.log("variables are:");
for (var taskVariable of taskVariables) {
console.log(taskVariable.name);
console.log(taskVariable.value);
}
console.log('##vso[task.setvariable variable=LogCode1;]LogCode1');
console.log('end========================');
console.log('current path is:' + __dirname);
fs.appendFile('TextFile1.txt', 'data to append', function (err) {
if (err) throw err;
console.log('Saved!');
});
console.log('configure file path:' + process.env.myconfig);
console.log('configure file path2:' + process.env.myconfig2);