bug: error in `dev` command when specifying a an entry file in an adjacent directory

[bguiz]

Describe the bug

• When you run slidev and specify a markdown entry file that is in the same directory as the slidev project --> OK
• When you run slidev and specify a markdown entry file that is in a sibling directory as the slidev project --> ERROR
• Using a symbolic link appears to workaround this error
  • However, relative paths within that file are interpreted differently, creating a different problem

Minimal reproduction

Steps to reproduce the behavior:

pnpm dev ../mod02/slides.md

Yields this error:

file:///Users/user/code/hedera/hedera-dev-course-101/slidev/node_modules/@slidev/cli/dist/chunk-UNQ5DBLZ.js:42
    throw new Error(`Failed to resolve package "${dep}"`);
          ^

Error: Failed to resolve package "@slidev/theme-default"
    at findPkgRoot (file:///Users/user/code/hedera/hedera-dev-course-101/slidev/node_modules/@slidev/cli/dist/chunk-UNQ5DBLZ.js:42:11)
    at async file:///Users/user/code/hedera/hedera-dev-course-101/slidev/node_modules/@slidev/cli/dist/chunk-UNQ5DBLZ.js:118:22
    at async resolveOptions (file:///Users/user/code/hedera/hedera-dev-course-101/slidev/node_modules/@slidev/cli/dist/chunk-UAXJBAYZ.js:2605:30)
    at async initServer (file:///Users/user/code/hedera/hedera-dev-course-101/slidev/node_modules/@slidev/cli/dist/cli.js:131:23)

Node.js v23.3.0
 ELIFECYCLE  Command failed with exit code 1.

Note that it also prompts the following every time, even though the theme is installed.

? The theme "@slidev/theme-default" was not found in your project, do you want to install it now? › (Y/n)

Workaround to avoid this behaviour:

ln -s ../mod02/slides.md mod02-slides.md
pnpm dev mod02-slides.md

Environment

• Slidev version:

  "dependencies": {
    "@slidev/cli": "^51.1.0",
    "@slidev/theme-default": "^0.25.0",
    "@slidev/theme-seriph": "latest",
    "vue": "^3.5.13"
  }

• Browser: Chrome - Version 132.0.6834.84 (Official Build) (arm64)
• OS: Mac OSX

[bguiz]

@kermanx LMK if you were able to reproduce this! I wanna know if it's just me or it actually is a bug in slidev. If it's the former, what I am doing wrong.

[kermanx]

Inferred from the stacktrace, did you mean:

cd /Users/user/code/hedera/hedera-dev-course-101/slidev/
pnpm dev ../mod02/slides.md

In this case, it errors because packages will be resolved from where the slides.md is, but the node_modules is not in its parent directory. You may need to move the package.json to /Users/user/code/hedera/hedera-dev-course-101/ and re-install it.

[bguiz]

@kermanx ah ok, so using sibling directories could work as long as the node_modules and package.json file are in the common parent directory? OK, will try that.

[bguiz]

@kermanx tried what you suggested, and it results in some strange behaviour, where the slides run but they render as empty, and in the terminal, I get this output:

Unknown layout "module_title_start". Available layouts are:
    404              center           cover            
    default          end              error            
    fact             full             iframe-left      
    iframe-right     iframe           image-left       
    image-right      image            intro            
    none             quote            section          
    statement        two-cols-header  two-cols

(repeated for each custom layout that I have, replace module_title_start)

This approach seems to introduce more problems, I think it might be better if there was a fix in slidev such that it is able to process/ display markdown files in sibling directories, even when package.json etc are in the current directory.

Perhaps one way of implementing this could be to add a CLI flag to specify what the slidev root directory to us should be. (If not specifies, uses the current directory, which is what it does right now)

[DylanEHolland]

is there any update on this problem? This is very strange behavior and was really hard to track down, I spent hours and hours trying to figure out what I was doing wrong just to find out its "expected."

Seems like slidev should just load the markdown and not require having node_modules etc in the same folder as the markdown, or if thats the behavior why even allow passing in a file in another directory?