With gitlab-ci I am using a simple .yml file. I have defined various stages to run synchronously. I have set a cache for node_modules. But the problem is that the cache of node_modules is actually slowing down the process. This cache is required to make the node_modules the same across each stage. (Each stage automatically clears /node_modules for some reason)
When building locally this whole process takes less then 2 minutes. But on the CI machine this process takes between 20 and 25 minutes. Learning how Gitlab CI works internally, I've learned that it's zipping the node_module files (about 36K small files) and that process is extremely slow.
tl;dr: What is the proper way to handle node_module caching with Gitlab CI without uploading node_modules to artifacts? I would like to avoid uploading artifacts that are over 400MB large.
See configuration below:
cache:
untracked: true
key: "%CI_COMMIT_REF_NAME%"
paths:
- node_modules
stages:
- install
- eslint-check
- eslint
- prettier
- test
- dist
# install dependancies
install:
stage: install
script:
- yarn install
environment:
name: development
# run eslint-check
eslint-check:
stage: eslint-check
script:
- yarn eslint-check
environment:
name: development
# Other scripts below
