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ADR: CommonJS and ESM decision #323

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# ADR: CommonJS only output
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## Status

Proposed

## Submitters

- @kjugi
- @wesleytodd
- @ctcpip

## Decision Owners

- @expressjs/express-tc

## Context

The document's objective is to gather all notable comments and thoughts in one place and track potential changes in this topic. We have noticed that it is repeated frequently in many issues from the community and we need to take action.

Based on the comments in the issues we know that some of you might not feel happy about it. We have acknowledged the need and discussion around it touched on multiple scenarios. Including:
- rethinking the process and exposing both paths for all libraries
- expose both paths for selected libraries
- keeping default settings as the main target is on the server
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**Why do we need this decision?**
- To reduce noise and maintain the ultimate answer for all of the issues.
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**What problem does it solve or avoid?**
- General response to community request.
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**Are there any existing issues/discussions/pull requests related to this?**
- https://github.com/pillarjs/router/issues/128
- https://github.com/expressjs/discussions/issues/297
- https://github.com/expressjs/express/discussions/6051
- https://github.com/jshttp/cookie/issues/211

## Decision

During [working session](https://github.com/expressjs/discussions/issues/320) we have decided to not revisit, investigate or discuss this topic further. That means ESM exports won't be available for expressjs as well for pillarjs and jshttp packages.
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**What will be done?**

Future issues can be closed with a link to this document.

## Rationale

CommonJS is the default node.js syntax. The JS world moved in the ESM direction as browsers consumed it well, and bundlers could make a tree-shake feature and dynamic imports. There is still a lot of baggage within the ESM itself and the way how we can use it.
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To keep it short it's a whole new chapter to discuss and consider so it could use a lot of time and resources to make it properly. Don't get this wrong - it's not impossible tho! Most of our users will use the package in their project and pass it to the bundler which will produce the right format without any issues.
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- **Alternatives Considered:**
- Alternative 1: Add ESM export to our libraries. CommonJS format is accepted by all most popular bundlers.
- **Pros and Cons**: Outline the pros and cons of the chosen solution.
- **Why is this decision the best option?** Time and energy can be shifted to other topics.

## Consequences

- **Positive Impact**: It does not require to support another set of tools and one more major (or at least big) release.
- **Negative Impact**:
- Packages can't be used in deno projects and potentially in other future runtime engines for JavaScript that decide to not support commonjs. That can be a potential user miss
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this is not true though, right? deno can indeed use cjs

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can it? i thought jsr packages could be consumed by cjs but deno still can only consume esm packages

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the premise of Deno was that it was only ESM, although I would have to verify it. Now you've made me doubt.

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Okay, they do support it, so it’s probably fine to say that only Deno 1 doesn’t support it, right?

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I think we can just remove this line. or rather, change it to reflect that packages may or may not work in browser environments

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+1 'may not work in browser environments.'

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@kjugi kjugi Feb 2, 2025

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Updated! Please resolve if it's fine now ✌️

- OSS library authors that use our packages in ESM native libs might suffer from a lack of support
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There is a greater negative impact which is that other users fork the packages to ESM and those packages lack security updates over time which leaves users in a worse position.

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@kjugi kjugi Feb 2, 2025

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That's a valid point! Added, thanks! Please resolve if it's fine now ✌️

- **Mitigations**: Potential decision update to support isomorphism for selected libraries (not specified yet) and exposing both types (CJS and ESM)

## References

Support for commonjs imports in ESM code is available in the node. Described in docs:
- https://nodejs.org/api/esm.html#interoperability-with-commonjs

Support for ESM modules imports in commonjs is available since node v20 behind the experimental flag and node v23 without a flag. Docs:
- https://nodejs.org/api/modules.html#loading-ecmascript-modules-using-require

## Changelog

Track changes or updates to this ADR over time. Include the date, author, and a brief description of each change.

- **[2025-01-15]**: [@kjugi] - document init
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