Serverless Framework - Share code between multiple services - serverless-framework

Question

I have multiple services
root/
services/
subscriptions/
users/
shared/
httpUtils.js
database.js
node_modules/
package.json
When I'm running severless locally using serverless-offline my imports work without a problem:
const _ = import('lodash') // module_modules
const database = require('../../shared/database')
However, when I deploy the application won't start because of
error: cannot find module lodash
error: cannot find module ../../shared/database
Does each service need to have its own node_modules dependencies within the service? It would be great if I could just load dependencies from a single node_modules at the root and the shared folder.
What's the standard practice in order to accomplish this for a project with multiple services?
each services gets its own copy of the shared files and node_modules?
private npm package with shared libs?
another packaging tool?
Thanks.

Answer 1

It is recommended that you use a packages.json for each service rather than try to use a single one shared across multiple services. You can get additional details about the use of package.json and the serverless framework here.
I have tried various techniques to share a single node_modules directory, but the solutions are fragile and eventually something will go wrong as I introduce more dependencies and start to version the services.
I do try to share as much as possible across my services, but have determined it isn't worth the effort to share a single node_modules directory.