Does a fresh app require import_map.json to be at the root of its directory?

[mmazzarolo]

Hola!
This might sound like a weird question, but: does a fresh app require import_map.json to be at the root of its directory?
Can we we move the fresh app dir into another deno project and move/adjust its import_map.json accordingly?

I'm working in a medium-size deno project that has a monorepo-like structure like this:

.
├── modules/
│   ├── server/
│   │   ├── a.ts
│   │   ├── b.ts
│   │   └── mod.ts
│   ├── library-one/
│   │   └── mod.ts
│   └── library-two/
│       └── mod.ts
├── deno.jsonc
└── import_map.json

In the root-level import_map.json I take care of mapping both local imports ("library-one": "./modules/library-one/mod.ts") and remote ones ("fs": "https://deno.land/[email protected]/fs/mod.ts").
This approach has been working pretty well for me so far, and I wanted to try integrating a new Fresh app in the same flow.

To do so, I:

• Created a new fresh app in /modules/fresh-app.
• Copy/pasted the content of /modules/fresh-app/import_map.json to my root-level import_map.json, and deleted Fresh's import_map.json.
• Updated my root level deno.jsonc to kickstart the app ("start-fresh-app": "deno run --import-map import_map.json -A --watch=./modules/fresh-app/static/,./modules/fresh-app/routes/ modules/fresh-app/dev.ts") and deleted Fresh's deno.json.

I assumed this would work, but running start-fresh-app throws an error about a failed call to deno info:

error: Unable to load 'file:///Users/blabla/my-app/modules/fresh-app/import_map.json' import map

Caused by:
    No such file or directory (os error 2)
error: Unable to load 'file:///Users/blabla/my-app/modules/fresh-app/import_map.json' import map

error: Failed to call 'deno info' on 'https://deno.land/x/[email protected]/src/runtime/main.ts'
    at failureErrorWithLog (https://deno.land/x/[email protected]/mod.js:1572:15)
    at https://deno.land/x/[email protected]/mod.js:1218:28
    at runOnEndCallbacks (https://deno.land/x/[email protected]/mod.js:1001:63)
    at buildResponseToResult (https://deno.land/x/[email protected]/mod.js:1216:7)
    at https://deno.land/x/[email protected]/mod.js:1325:14
    at https://deno.land/x/[email protected]/mod.js:633:9
    at handleIncomingPacket (https://deno.land/x/[email protected]/mod.js:730:9)
    at readFromStdout (https://deno.land/x/[email protected]/mod.js:599:7)
    at https://deno.land/x/[email protected]/mod.js:1846:11

Restoring the original /modules/fresh-app/import_map.json is enough to fix the issue — it seems some dependency requires it to be at the root of the fresh-app?

It's not that big of deal for me, but before starting to investigate, I wanted to ask here if there's any reason import_map.json needs to be at the root of the fresh app dir? (I might also just be missing something on my end 😅).

Oh, and btw, great work with Fresh (and Deno!)

[notangelmario]

not really an experienced deno user so take this with a grain of salt. from the code i read and what i played around with, i noticed that fresh itself grabs the import_map.json from the root of the project.

here is the line where I noticed this.
https://github.dev/denoland/fresh/blob/74387ff92bf8f8bfdbd9a0361e8f92816dc9e600/src/server/context.ts#L97

[mmazzarolo]

Hey! yeah, I'm pretty sure that's why it's happening.
I would assume this path could be made configurable, but I'd understand that doing so is not a priority :)

[marvinhagemeister]

For anyone coming across this discussion: Since Deno 1.30.0 the deno.json file supports an imports field which is basically an inline import map. See the documentation for that here https://deno.land/[email protected]/getting_started/configuration_file#imports-and-scopes