Core: Fix cyclical dependency in core addons

[JReinhold]

Closes #31573

What I did

• Changed core addons to be imported relatively instead of via an entry point. that way, they become part of the preview-api bundle instead of a separate thing. the separate entry point was causing a cyclical dependency, storybook/preview-api -> storybook/highlight/preview -> storybook/preview-api
• Stopped producing these /preview entry points, as they weren't actually useful for anything. They are automatically applied in the Storybook runtime as well as in portable stories, implicitly via setProjectAnnotations().

As discussed with @kasperpeulen, @yannbf, @ndelangen.

Checklist for Contributors

Testing

The changes in this PR are covered in the following automated tests:

• stories
• unit tests
• integration tests
• end-to-end tests

Manual testing

This section is mandatory for all contributions. If you believe no manual test is necessary, please state so explicitly. Thanks!

Documentation

• Add or update documentation reflecting your changes
• If you are deprecating/removing a feature, make sure to update
  MIGRATION.MD

Checklist for Maintainers

• When this PR is ready for testing, make sure to add ci:normal, ci:merged or ci:daily GH label to it to run a specific set of sandboxes. The particular set of sandboxes can be found in code/lib/cli-storybook/src/sandbox-templates.ts

• Make sure this PR contains one of the labels below:

  Available labels

  • bug: Internal changes that fixes incorrect behavior.
  • maintenance: User-facing maintenance tasks.
  • dependencies: Upgrading (sometimes downgrading) dependencies.
  • build: Internal-facing build tooling & test updates. Will not show up in release changelog.
  • cleanup: Minor cleanup style change. Will not show up in release changelog.
  • documentation: Documentation only changes. Will not show up in release changelog.
  • feature request: Introducing a new feature.
  • BREAKING CHANGE: Changes that break compatibility in some way with current major version.
  • other: Changes that don't fit in the above categories.

🦋 Canary release

This pull request has been released as version 0.0.0-pr-31750-sha-3896d4de. Try it out in a new sandbox by running npx storybook@0.0.0-pr-31750-sha-3896d4de sandbox or in an existing project with npx storybook@0.0.0-pr-31750-sha-3896d4de upgrade.

More information

Published version	0.0.0-pr-31750-sha-3896d4de
Triggered by	@JReinhold
Repository	storybookjs/storybook
Branch	jeppe/fix-preview-api-bicycle
Commit	3896d4de
Datetime	Wed Jun 11 13:52:41 UTC 2025 (1749649961)
Workflow run	15586796328

To request a new release of this pull request, mention the @storybookjs/core team.

core team members can create a new canary release here or locally with gh workflow run --repo storybookjs/storybook canary-release-pr.yml --field pr=31750

Greptile Summary

Resolves critical cyclical dependency issue in Storybook's core addons by restructuring how preview APIs are bundled and imported.

• Changed addon imports to use relative paths instead of entry points in code/core/src/csf/core-annotations.ts
• Removed separate /preview entry points from code/core/package.json for various addons (backgrounds, measure, outline, etc.)
• Removed empty index files from multiple addons in code/core/src/ (backgrounds, outline, measure, component-testing)
• Modified code/core/scripts/entries.ts and dts.ts to remove preview entries from external dependencies
• Functionality now handled implicitly via setProjectAnnotations(), fixing Metro bundler crashes in React Native

[Copilot]

Pull Request Overview

This PR fixes a cyclical dependency issue in core addons by removing empty exports and outdated module mappings while updating import paths.

• Removed now-unneeded files and exports for outline, measure, and component-testing.
• Updated import paths in csf/core-annotations to use relative references.
• Cleaned up configuration entries in the scripts and package.json files to eliminate obsolete alias mappings.

Reviewed Changes

Copilot reviewed 8 out of 8 changed files in this pull request and generated no comments.

Show a summary per file

File	Description
code/core/src/outline/index.ts	Removed empty export to eliminate an unnecessary module.
code/core/src/measure/index.ts	Removed empty export to eliminate an unnecessary module.
code/core/src/csf/core-annotations.ts	Updated import paths from absolute to relative to reduce coupling.
code/core/src/component-testing/index.ts	Removed an empty module to resolve cyclical dependency.
code/core/src/backgrounds/index.ts	Removed empty export to resolve unused alias.
code/core/scripts/entries.ts	Removed definitions for removed modules to avoid dangling references.
code/core/scripts/dts.ts	Cleaned up type definition mappings corresponding to removed modules.
code/core/package.json	Removed outdated alias mappings to reflect module removals.

Comments suppressed due to low confidence (2)

code/core/package.json:86

• The removal of legacy alias mappings for modules such as backgrounds, measure, and outline may affect external consumers. It is recommended to update the migration documentation to clearly state these breaking changes.

"./internal/backgrounds": {

code/core/scripts/entries.ts:22

• Removing these module definitions is key to fixing the cyclical dependency, but please ensure that any dependent tests or consumers are updated or notified, as this may be a breaking change.

define('src/backgrounds/index.ts', ['browser', 'node'], true, ['react'], [], [], true),

[JReinhold]

@dannyhw can you check if this canary fixes the cyclical issue?
If so, I'll try to patch this back to 9.0.

[nx-cloud]

View your CI Pipeline Execution ↗ for commit d051121.

Command	Status	Duration	Result
nx run-many -t build --parallel=3	✅ Succeeded	1m 13s	View ↗

---

☁️ Nx Cloud last updated this comment at 2025-06-11 19:07:17 UTC

[storybook-app-bot]

Package Benchmarks

^{Commit: d051121, ran on 11 June 2025 at 19:13:12 UTC}

The following packages have significant changes to their size or dependencies:

storybook

	Before	After	Difference
Dependency count	49	49	0
Self size	31.88 MB	31.85 MB	🎉 -38 KB 🎉
Dependency size	17.41 MB	17.41 MB	0 B
Bundle Size Analyzer	Link	Link

sb

	Before	After	Difference
Dependency count	50	50	0
Self size	1 KB	1 KB	0 B
Dependency size	49.29 MB	49.25 MB	🎉 -38 KB 🎉
Bundle Size Analyzer	Link	Link

@storybook/cli

	Before	After	Difference
Dependency count	216	216	0
Self size	582 KB	582 KB	0 B
Dependency size	94.66 MB	94.57 MB	🎉 -95 KB 🎉
Bundle Size Analyzer	Link	Link

@storybook/codemod

	Before	After	Difference
Dependency count	185	185	0
Self size	31 KB	31 KB	0 B
Dependency size	78.74 MB	78.70 MB	🎉 -38 KB 🎉
Bundle Size Analyzer	Link	Link

create-storybook

	Before	After	Difference
Dependency count	1	1	0
Self size	12.53 MB	12.47 MB	🎉 -58 KB 🎉
Dependency size	98 KB	98 KB	0 B
Bundle Size Analyzer	Link	Link

[greptile-apps]

LGTM

_{8 files reviewed, no comments
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[dannyhw]

Hey @JReinhold Sorry I couldn't test the other day had a lot going on. Unfortunately react native actions was actually using the actions/preview entrypoint to setup actions, maybe there is a way around this but I would need some help to figure that out.

edit:

still looking into this, the main thing currently is it just breaking the build but I need to see if I can just remove that part

Regarding the react compiler, it is still erroring and I still need to comment out the core annotations to get things to work, one thing I noticed though is that if I just comment out the core annotations in the list even without removing the import it works.

Yeah right now I can't seem to get the react native actions addon to work :/ my workaround now is to just duplicate the actions annotations code to react native