Mark specific package as noExternal in development mode

[kumardeo]

Is there any way to mark specific node module package as noExternal similar to vite.ssr.noExternal? Current setting nitro.noExternals to true marks everything as noExternal and breaks nitro.

[apoorva-01]

noExternals: true is all-or-nothing, that's why it breaks. What you actually want is the inline list under externals, which is additive:

// nitro.config.ts (or the `nitro` block in your framework config)
export default defineNitroConfig({
  externals: {
    inline: ['the-package'], // a string, or a RegExp if you need to catch subpaths too
  },
})

Everything else stays external (so dev stays fast) and only that one package gets bundled. Nitro defu-merges your inline into the externals plugin's default list rather than replacing it, and that same plugin runs in the dev rollup build, not just nitro build, so it takes effect in nitro dev.

One heads-up if you're on Nitro v3 / latest Nuxt: externals.inline got folded into noExternals, which now takes an array. Same behavior, shorter name:

noExternals: ['the-package']

[kumardeo]

@apoorva-01 Thanks for the explanation!