process.cwd() Different paths in development and production environment

[SabrioBiblio]

Question

I'm using next js 14.

In each page folder I have a file (meta.md) that I read using fs. Let it be written accordingly to these files
const postsDirectoryPath = process.cwd();

In the development environment, everything works and the files are read, this is understandable, since process.cwd refers to the root directory of the project. But on the vercel, process.cwd refers to .next, where naturally the meta.md file no longer exists. I have some problems with debugging on Vercel and I can't keep track of everything.

But there is some confusion about how this works in production, since I call my function that reads the files in the top page.tsx (homepage) file and it surprisingly works. Doesn't work if the md file reading function is called at levels below (another pages in another folders)

[SabrioBiblio]

I see that this is a common problem related to verceland the file system in production. I tried to implement this in different ways, but it doesn't seem to work

[GrishonNganga]

Don't know if any of you was able to fix the issue. I managed to go around the issue by putting the .md files I needed to open in the lib folder. Turns out vercel always includes the lib folder as part of the assets under src/lib. That way I was able to open the files with process.cwd() both locally and on vercel.

[lob0codes]

I was struggling with a similar issue. Not sure if the solution found will work for you.

If you render something like "

{process.cwd()}

" in prod (app deployed in Vercel), it renders the directory path "var/task".
Which as expected, is different from what one will get in a local environment (npm run dev).

So, I tried to render something like this:

const filesDirectoryList = fs.readdir(process.cwd())

{filesDirectoryList.map(file => (

{file}

)}

And got a list of files where "public" directory was not visible.
So, after looking for a solution, I saw a proposal of adding "public" to the desired directory path:

import fs from "fs";
import path from "path";

const filePath = path.join(process.cwd(), "public", "example.md");
const content = fs.readFileSync(filePath);

You may add a more complex hierarchy of folders like "posts/example.md" and it also works.

It did the job, I was able target the desired files.

[leerob]

There's some more details about this files get included here: https://vercel.com/guides/how-can-i-use-files-in-serverless-functions

Do do you have a small example of the issue you're seeing?

[SabrioBiblio]

I solved this issue.
Everything is quite logical.
However, I don’t quite remember the decision, since I haven’t touched the project for more than two months.
But here is an example with posts that I implemented

/*The posts folder is in the root of the project*/
const pathToPosts = process.env.NODE_ENV === "development" ? "/posts" : "posts";
const postsDirectoryPath = process.cwd();
    const files = await fs.readdir(path.join(postsDirectoryPath, pathToPosts), {
      withFileTypes: true,
    });

[thebiltheory]

Might also be related to this.

If you're using next, using turbotrace did the trick for me.

See the official documentation

/** @type {import('next').NextConfig} */
const nextConfig = {
  output: "standalone",
  experimental: {
    turbotrace: {},
  },
};

EDIT: processCwd: process.cwd() wasn't needed.

[AshGw]

Running Next 14.
I get the same problem with process.cwd(), where I have this setup to retrieve files from the blog directory @ /public/blog

export async function getBlogPosts(
  blogDirectory: string = BLOG_CONTENT_PATH
): Promise<Optional<PostData[]>> {
  console.log(
    'Invoked all blog posts from: ' + path.join(process.cwd(), blogDirectory)
  );
  return getMDXData(path.join(process.cwd(), blogDirectory));
}

I get this on vercel

Invoked all blog posts from: /var/task/public/blogs
Invoked all mdx data from: /var/task/public/blogs
Invoked all blog posts from: /var/task/public/blogs
Invoked all mdx data from: /var/task/public/blogs
Error reading MDX files: [Error: ENOENT: no such file or directory, scandir '/var/task/public/blogs'] {
errno: -2,
code: 'ENOENT',
syscall: 'scandir',
path: '/var/task/public/blogs'
}
Error reading MDX files: [Error: ENOENT: no such file or directory, scandir '/var/task/public/blogs'] {
errno: -2,
code: 'ENOENT',
syscall: 'scandir',
path: '/var/task/public/blogs'
}

Local production build

Invoked all blog posts from: /home/ashgw/work/ashgw.me/public/blogs
Invoked all mdx data from: /home/ashgw/work/ashgw.me/public/blogs
Invoked all blog posts from: /home/ashgw/work/ashgw.me/public/blogs
Invoked all mdx data from: /home/ashgw/work/ashgw.me/public/blogs

This solved it

/** @type {import('next').NextConfig} */

const nextConfig = {
  experimental: {
    outputFileTracingIncludes: {
      '/blog': ['./public/**/*'],
    },
  },
}

[Demi1024]

Running Next 14. I get the same problem with process.cwd(), where I have this setup to retrieve files from the blog directory @ /public/blog

export async function getBlogPosts(
  blogDirectory: string = BLOG_CONTENT_PATH
): Promise<Optional<PostData[]>> {
  console.log(
    'Invoked all blog posts from: ' + path.join(process.cwd(), blogDirectory)
  );
  return getMDXData(path.join(process.cwd(), blogDirectory));
}

I get this on vercel

Invoked all blog posts from: /var/task/public/blogs
Invoked all mdx data from: /var/task/public/blogs
Invoked all blog posts from: /var/task/public/blogs
Invoked all mdx data from: /var/task/public/blogs
Error reading MDX files: [Error: ENOENT: no such file or directory, scandir '/var/task/public/blogs'] {
errno: -2,
code: 'ENOENT',
syscall: 'scandir',
path: '/var/task/public/blogs'
}
Error reading MDX files: [Error: ENOENT: no such file or directory, scandir '/var/task/public/blogs'] {
errno: -2,
code: 'ENOENT',
syscall: 'scandir',
path: '/var/task/public/blogs'
}

Local production build

Invoked all blog posts from: /home/ashgw/work/ashgw.me/public/blogs
Invoked all mdx data from: /home/ashgw/work/ashgw.me/public/blogs
Invoked all blog posts from: /home/ashgw/work/ashgw.me/public/blogs
Invoked all mdx data from: /home/ashgw/work/ashgw.me/public/blogs

This solved it

/** @type {import('next').NextConfig} */

const nextConfig = {
  experimental: {
    outputFileTracingIncludes: {
      '/blog': ['./public/**/*'],
    },
  },
}

Works for me, thanks 😊