unable to initialize Observerablehq/framework

[hermygithub]

Hi All,

I'm pretty new to Observable but am quite used to building and running applications on nodejs.

I tried to initialize a project using 'npx "@observablehq/framework@latest" create' (1.13.2) but it just aborts without any specific feedback other than

npm warn deprecated inflight@1.0.6: This module is not supported, and leaks memory. Do not use it. Check out lru-cache if you want a good and tested way to coalesce async requests by a key value, which is much more comprehensive and powerful.
npm warn deprecated glob@8.1.0: Glob versions prior to v9 are no longer supported

I run the npx command in a bit of a strange way because of nodejs and glibc issues (and I don't want to have a node version installed globally on my system)

~/_binaries/node-v22.14.0-linux-x64/bin/node ~/_binaries/node-v22.14.0-linux-x64/bin/npx "@observablehq/framework@1.13.2" create

also

$ ldd --version
ldd (Ubuntu GLIBC 2.38-1ubuntu6.3) 2.38

any ideas ?

[mythmon]

That's a curious behavior. Generally the create script starts running after those deprecation warnings for me. I have a couple ideas, but nothing that is an obvious solution:

• npx is generally a standalone binary that doesn't need node to run (at least it is on my system). Do you get any other behavior with a command like ~/_binaries/node-v22.14.0-linux-x64/bin/npx "@observablehq/framework@1.13.2" create?
• Are you getting colors in any of the output you see? The create script using some moderately fancy shell tricks that might be doing strange things if you have an unusual shell.
• Node 22 should work, but can you try Node 20?
• You could try and create a new normal Node.js workspace (with npm init or yarn init) and then install Framework there. That might help you bypass create, and start with one of the examples instead. The create script doesn't do a lot that you couldn't do by hand.

I generally have a similar approach to not having a global Node installed, except I use Nix for that. Would it be helpful for you if I share the Nix flake configurations I use for my development shells? There isn't anything too fancy in them, but maybe we could figure out what is different between the two set ups.

[hermygithub]

Hi @mythmon ,

Thx for your message and detailed instructions! I'll have a go at these now!

• on your point that npx is a standalone binary, it seems that it is a plane JS / TS file
  

• executing the command searches for the node binary due to the #!/usr/bin/env node on the top of the NPX file

$ ~/_binaries/node-v22.14.0-linux-x64/bin/npx "@observablehq/framework@1.13.2" create
/usr/bin/env: ‘node’: No such file or directory

• I am indeed seeing colors in the terminal, I get this strange little spinner in the bottom of the screen, which I think is good, right?
  

• using node-v20.18.3-linux-x64.tar.gz, giving the same result

• when trying the init manually it seems to fail when I try to npm install "@observablehq/framework@1.13.2" -- it seems it is trying to use the global node binary, instead of using the one provided in the path error sh: 1: node: not found

1804 info run esbuild@0.20.2 postinstall node_modules/esbuild node install.js
1805 info run esbuild@0.20.2 postinstall { code: 127, signal: null }
1806 verbose stack Error: command failed
1806 verbose stack     at promiseSpawn (~/_binaries/node-v20.18.3-linux-x64/lib/node_modules/npm/node_modules/@npmcli/promise-spawn/lib/index.js:22:22)
1806 verbose stack     at spawnWithShell (~/_binaries/node-v20.18.3-linux-x64/lib/node_modules/npm/node_modules/@npmcli/promise-spawn/lib/index.js:124:10)
1806 verbose stack     at promiseSpawn (~/_binaries/node-v20.18.3-linux-x64/lib/node_modules/npm/node_modules/@npmcli/promise-spawn/lib/index.js:12:12)
1806 verbose stack     at runScriptPkg (~/_binaries/node-v20.18.3-linux-x64/lib/node_modules/npm/node_modules/@npmcli/run-script/lib/run-script-pkg.js:77:13)
1806 verbose stack     at runScript (~/_binaries/node-v20.18.3-linux-x64/lib/node_modules/npm/node_modules/@npmcli/run-script/lib/run-script.js:9:12)
1806 verbose stack     at ~/_binaries/node-v20.18.3-linux-x64/lib/node_modules/npm/node_modules/@npmcli/arborist/lib/arborist/rebuild.js:329:17
1806 verbose stack     at run (~/_binaries/node-v20.18.3-linux-x64/lib/node_modules/npm/node_modules/promise-call-limit/dist/commonjs/index.js:67:22)
1806 verbose stack     at ~/_binaries/node-v20.18.3-linux-x64/lib/node_modules/npm/node_modules/promise-call-limit/dist/commonjs/index.js:84:9
1806 verbose stack     at new Promise (<anonymous>)
1806 verbose stack     at callLimit (~/_binaries/node-v20.18.3-linux-x64/lib/node_modules/npm/node_modules/promise-call-limit/dist/commonjs/index.js:35:69)
1807 verbose pkgid esbuild@0.20.2
1808 error code 127
1809 error path ~/_projects/ObservableHQ_test/my_app/node_modules/esbuild
1810 error command failed
1811 error command sh -c node install.js
1812 error sh: 1: node: not found

--> it seems that I can 'npm install express' successfully, but not observablehq framework unfortunately...

I'll have to try out your recommendation for Nix, but that will take some more time for me to figure it out.

[mythmon]

I think if you're not already familiar with Nix, it probably isn't worth digging into for this.

I have two thoughts based on what you've seen. For one, I'd recommend making sure that node, npm, and npx are on your $PATH for this. There are a few parts of Framework that will call Node, such as data loaders, so you'll need it anyways, but I suspect it may also help in the set up process. Since you don't want to have them globally installed, you could use something like direnv to modify your path just in certain directories to add them to your path.

The second idea I had is that the spinner seems to be happening at the time I'd expect npx to be downloading the Node package for framework. Perhaps there is some network issue that is causing a problem? In my testing I was able to get that when I was in a "pure" environment, but didn't track down what I was missing. Maybe openssl, or some other networking related library? Maybe if you are comfortable with it you could plug in strace or wireshark to see what it is waiting on. Unless you have a very slow network, that shouldn't take more than 30 seconds or slow.

[hermygithub]

thx @mythmon ,

I can live with amending the PATH variable 😄

$ npm run dev

> my_app@1.0.0 dev
> observable preview

Observable Framework v1.13.2
↳ http://127.0.0.1:3000/

Thx so much for your help!

i think the issue is in the esbuild module...

$ ~/_binaries/node-v20.18.3-linux-x64/bin/node ~/_binaries/node-v20.18.3-linux-x64/bin/npm install esbuild
npm error code 127
npm error path ~/_projects/ObservableHQ_test/testapp/node_modules/esbuild
npm error command failed
npm error command sh -c node install.js
npm error sh: 1: node: not found

[mythmon]

Great! I'm glad you got it working, and I hope you'll share what cool things you end up building.