Configuring Custom Path for node_modules in Vite

[trumko]

Hi,

I have a question regarding customizing the location of the node_modules folder in a Vite project. In my use case, I would like to instruct Vite to look for node_modules in a different (sibling) directory rather than the default ./node_modules, due to project constraints where dependencies are centralized in a shared folder.

I couldn’t find an option in the documentation for explicitly changing the node_modules lookup path. Is there a way to configure Vite to use a custom path for node_modules - such as a directory outside the project root or nested within a subfolder?

Here are some details about what I tried:

• Changing the root directory: While this affects the project structure, it doesn't seem to influence the location where Vite resolves modules from node_modules.
• Aliases in resolve.alias: I considered manually aliasing dependencies, but this approach doesn't scale well for larger projects with many dependencies.

Here’s an example directory structure:

/workspace
  ├─ /project-a
  │    ├─ vite.config.js
  │    ├─ src/
  ├─ /shared
       ├─ /node_modules

In this setup, I would like project-a to resolve dependencies from /workspace/shared/node_modules.

Is there an existing configuration option to change the default path where Vite looks for node_modules?