"Cannot find module 'zod'" in production environment

[oakgary]

Confirm this is a Node library issue and not an underlying OpenAI API issue

• This is an issue with the Node library

Describe the bug

Error: Cannot find module 'zod'
Require stack:
- /app/node_modules/openai/_vendor/zod-to-json-schema/parseDef.js
- /app/node_modules/openai/_vendor/zod-to-json-schema/index.js
- /app/node_modules/openai/helpers/zod.js
- /app/main.js
at Module._resolveFilename (node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:1140:15)
at Module._load (node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:981:27)
at Module.require (node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:1231:19)
at Hook.Module.require (/app/node_modules/dd-trace/packages/dd-trace/src/ritm.js:64:27)
at require (node:internal/modules/helpers:177:18)
at Object.<anonymous> (/app/node_modules/openai/_vendor/zod-to-json-schema/parseDef.js:4:15)
at Module._compile (node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:1364:14)
at Module._extensions..js (node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:1422:10)
at Module.load (node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:1203:32)
at Module._load (node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:1019:12) {
    code: 'MODULE_NOT_FOUND',
    requireStack: [
        '/app/node_modules/openai/_vendor/zod-to-json-schema/parseDef.js',
        '/app/node_modules/openai/_vendor/zod-to-json-schema/index.js',
        '/app/node_modules/openai/helpers/zod.js',
        '/app/main.js'
    ]
}

package.json:

"dependencies": {
	...
	"openai": "^4.60.1",
	"zod": "^3.23.8",
	...
}

npm ls zod logs

@redacted/[email protected] /Users/redacted
├─┬ [email protected]
│ └── [email protected] deduped
└── [email protected]

To Reproduce

I am not sure to be honest. It works fine locally but seems to break somewhere during the deployment. Please let me know what insights could further help you debug this issue.

Code snippets

No response

OS

linux/arm64

Node version

v18.20.4

Library version

v4.60.1

[RobertCraigie]

@oakgary what happens if you import zod in your own code? does that work?

[oakgary]

@oakgary what happens if you import zod in your own code? does that work?

@RobertCraigie the project, including openai and zod, works entirely fine locally, so I guess yes.

[RobertCraigie]

That's strange, could you share your package.json? And you're just using JS?

[oakgary]

That's strange, could you share your package.json? And you're just using JS?

I can't really share the whole package.json. Is there any specific part you are interested in besides the two packages as referenced in the initial post?
Yes, It's just a NestJS application running on NodeJS.

[RobertCraigie]

No worries, would you mind redacting any parts you feel are sensitive and then sharing it? I'm not really sure what I'd need to be able to reproduce, so it would be helpful to get as similar of a setup as possible.

[oakgary]

There isn't really much left after

{
	"name": "redacted",
	"version": "redacted",
	"license": "redacted",
	"scripts": {
		// redacted
	},
	"private": true,
	"dependencies": {
		// redacted
		"openai": "^4.60.1",
		"zod": "^3.23.8"
	},
	"devDependencies": {
		// redacted
	}
}

For context though, we only added zod for the openai implementation and are not using it for anything else.

During our deployment the relevant GitHub Actions steps should be

steps:
  - name: Checkout code
    uses: actions/checkout@v4

  - name: Set Node.js 20.x
    uses: actions/setup-node@v4
    with:
      node-version: 20.x

  - name: Cache node modules
    uses: actions/cache@v3
    with:
      path: node_modules
      key: node_modules-${{hashFiles('yarn.lock')}}
      restore-keys: node_modules-

  - name: Run yarn install
    uses: borales/actions-yarn@v4
    with:
      cmd: install

When it's deployed it's running inside a linux/arm64 node:18-alpine docker container.

[oakgary]

While working on a minimal reproducible repository and debugging, the process involved two steps:

1. Upgrading Yarn from version 1.22.19 to 1.22.22 resolved the issue in my minimal repository. I suspect this is related to the following fix:

   Fixes a hoisting issue when transitive dependencies themselves listed aliases as dependencies.

   Yarn v1.22.22 Release Notes

2. However, the issue still occurred in the full project.

I then noticed that our build system, Nx, removed the zod package from the package.json in the dist directory. This was due to a combination of me not defining the dependency on the zod module correctly and it being marked as a devDependency in the openai module.

[oakgary]

Is zod intended to be set as a devDependency https://github.com/openai/openai-node/blob/master/package.json#L56?

[oakgary]

I've updated my response above, and the issue is now resolved on our end. Please feel free to close this if there are no further takeaways for the project.

[RobertCraigie]

Thanks for the update!

Is zod intended to be set as a devDependency

Yes, we don't want to add it as a required dependency so that users that aren't using the structured output helpers don't need it.

This was due to a combination of me not defining the dependency on the zod module correctly

I'm curious how did you define it incorrectly? In case anyone else runs into this in the future.

[ZachHandley]

colinhacks/zod#3739 -- please include your solutions when you solve something so others like me don't have to wonder

[oakgary]

This was due to a combination of me not defining the dependency on the zod module correctly

I'm curious how did you define it incorrectly? In case anyone else runs into this in the future.

colinhacks/zod#3739 -- please include your solutions when you solve something so others like me don't have to wonder

We are using a monorepo setup with nx. zod was defined as a dependency at the root level, but not within the custom library we have for LLMs that was actually using it. As a result, during the build step, zod was removed from the final package.json and node_modules since it was not properly considered as in use.