How about plugin for native import maps for external packages?

[cawa-93]

Some packages should not, or cannot be bundled, and should remain in production as external packages. In this case, there may be a problem with the bare module:

import {defineComponent as e, pushScopeId as t, popScopeId as n, resolveComponent as o, openBlock as r, createBlock as a, createVNode as u, withScopeId as l, createTextVNode as c, Fragment as s, ref as i, toDisplayString as d, createApp as p} from "vue";

Uncaught TypeError: Failed to resolve module specifier "vue".  Relative references must start with either "/", "./", or "../".

It would be fabulous to have a plugin that would automatically inject map imports for all external packages:

<script type="importmap">
{
  "imports": {
    "vue": "/node_modules/vue/dist/vue.runtime.esm-browser.prod.js"
  }
}
</script>

Is it technically possible at all?

One of the use cases:
Electron application. You can use packages, that require the nodejs context, but in the browser runtime.

Or, you don't bindle an dependencies at all. Since this is an electron application, all dependencies are delivered locally and there is no need to optimize them.

[maicol07]

@cawa-93 I have the same issue when using an import map with Vite dev server (building works fine). Did you found a workaround to avoid the exception?
In my case:

12:41:39 [vite] Internal server error: Failed to resolve import "modulePage" from "resources\js\app.js". Does the file exist?
  Plugin: vite:import-analysis
  File: C:/Users/Maicol/Documents/Progetti/Web/osm_rewrite/resources/js/app.js
  4  |  
  5  |  // eslint-disable-next-line import/no-unresolved
  6  |  import * as modulePages from 'modulePage';
     |                                ^
  7  |  
  8  |  import '../scss/app.scss';
      at formatError (C:\Users\Maicol\Documents\Progetti\Web\osm_rewrite\node_modules\.pnpm\[email protected]\node_modules\vite\dist\node\chunks\dep-972722fa.js:51153:46)
      at TransformContext.error (C:\Users\Maicol\Documents\Progetti\Web\osm_rewrite\node_modules\.pnpm\[email protected]\node_modules\vite\dist\node\chunks\dep-972722fa.js:51149:19)
      at normalizeUrl (C:\Users\Maicol\Documents\Progetti\Web\osm_rewrite\node_modules\.pnpm\[email protected]\node_modules\vite\dist\node\chunks\dep-972722fa.js:74554:26)
      at async TransformContext.transform (C:\Users\Maicol\Documents\Progetti\Web\osm_rewrite\node_modules\.pnpm\[email protected]\node_modules\vite\dist\node\chunks\dep-972722fa.js:74687:57)
      at async Object.transform (C:\Users\Maicol\Documents\Progetti\Web\osm_rewrite\node_modules\.pnpm\[email protected]\node_modules\vite\dist\node\chunks\dep-972722fa.js:51354:30)
      at async transformRequest (C:\Users\Maicol\Documents\Progetti\Web\osm_rewrite\node_modules\.pnpm\[email protected]\node_modules\vite\dist\node\chunks\dep-972722fa.js:67098:29)
      at async viteTransformMiddleware (C:\Users\Maicol\Documents\Progetti\Web\osm_rewrite\node_modules\.pnpm\[email protected]\node_modules\vite\dist\node\chunks\dep-972722fa.js:67225:32) (x2)

[pakholeung37]

@maicol07 @cawa-93 vite will resolve any bare module.
Try vite-plugin-import-maps