Webpacker: How to use without sprockets?

[henderea]

With the release of Sprockets 4, it apparently requires me to have an app/assets/config/manifest.js, which I shouldn't need since I'm using webpacker. However, when I updated my application.rb to exclude the sprockets import, the rails webpacker:compile task no longer worked.

What is the recommended method to disable sprockets and use webpacker alone? I'm kind of confused on what I need to do, since excluding the sprockets require caused errors in the webpacker:compile task.

Also, is simply converting all of my JS and CSS assets to webpacker and removeing app/assets enough to no longer need sprockets, or is sprockets involved in the use of webpacker or of regular rails views?

As a note, this app was originally on sprockets, and I converted it to webpacker a while back. There is a chance I may not have properly converted fully away from sprockets, but things have been working fine so far. Is there a guide on fully converting from sprockets to webpacker and removing sprockets from the app?

[jakeNiemiec]

the rails webpacker:compile task no longer worked.

In order to help debug, could you please post as much as you can of:

• ./package.json
• ./config/webpack/environment.js
• ./config/webpacker.yml
• ./app/javascript/packs/application.js
• the full error message (even the parts you wouldn’t think of as relevant)

[henderea]

Hmm. After looking at the error again, it seems that it was because I had some lines in my rails config/environments/*.rb files setting elements in config.assets, which apparently isn't defined without sprockets pulled in.

I seem to have things working now. However, it would be good to know where I can find a guide on fully converting from sprockets to webpacker. This need to remove the config lines and update the require statements in application.rb was not something I was aware of until I started having these errors, and it might have been nice to have a proper guide on the conversion.

Maybe you could have a link or section in your documentation on how to do a full conversion of an existing app from sprockets to webpacker? Having something like that would probably have helped me avoid this issue in the first place. If you have a link or section for that in your documentation, I must have missed it somehow, but searching in your readme for "sprockets" didn't find any mentions of how to convert an app.

[jakeNiemiec]

I think https://github.com/rails/webpacker#usage has good content.

it would be good to know where I can find a guide on fully converting from sprockets to webpacker.

There are many detailed ones medium.com. When _I_ switched, I just did config.assets.enabled = false.

Maybe you could have a link or section in your documentation on how to do a full conversion of an existing app from sprockets to webpacker?

If you find or create a good one, feel free to create a PR.

[cmitz]

I struggled to find high quality content on removing Sprockets fully, too. What I did was rails new my-app --skip-sprockets and see what the differences were.

Your first hunch seemed right:

• Move all files to a place webpack(er) can find (e.g. /javascripts/packs)
• Remove require 'sprockets/engine' import in application.rb

So:

Also, is simply converting all of my JS and CSS assets to webpacker and removeing app/assets enough to no longer need sprockets

yes

[MutableLoss]

I just ran into this error with a new disabled-sprockets rails app, just because a style-library gem existed in the Gemfile (material-sass/bootstrap), even though the asset-pipeline was disabled.

This makes sense, since libraries should be added through npm/yarn versus the gemfile, but is the asset error considered normal behavior in this scenario? It feels a bit misleading because it's coming from a 3rd party asset source.

[DanGrewal1]

I created a new app with the --skip-sprockets flag and im still getting sprockets and sprockets-sass in my gemfile.lock. The only dependency is rails and i have removed the rails/all and replaced with each individual framework (not sprockets) any reason why im still getting sprockets?

[Sporky023]

I just tested @MutableLoss's angle and found that the presence of sassc-rails in my Gemfile was causing the issue. Apparently these gems kick off some sprockets activity of their own, in order to plug themselves in.