Dependencies

In a Wasp project, dependencies are defined in a standard way for JavaScript projects: using the package.json file, located at the root of your project. You can list your dependencies under the dependencies or devDependencies fields.

Adding a New Dependency

To add a new package, like date-fns (a great date handling library), you use npm:

npm install date-fns

This command will add the package in the dependencies section of your package.json file.

You will notice that there are some other packages in the dependencies section, like react and wasp. These are the packages that Wasp uses internally, and you should not modify or remove them.

Using Packages that are Already Used by Wasp Internally

In the current version of Wasp, if Wasp is already internally using a certain dependency (e.g. React) with a certain version specified, you are not allowed to define that same npm dependency yourself while specifying a different version.

If you do that, you will get an error message telling you which exact version you have to use for that dependency. This means Wasp dictates exact versions of certain packages, so for example you can't choose the version of React you want to use.

note

We are currently working on a restructuring that will solve this and some other quirks: check issue #734 to follow our progress.