1456403 - 'mach lint' modifies npm_shrinkwrap.json, which is easy to accidentally check-in

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 1417175

(Developer Infrastructure :: Lint and Formatting, defect)

Description

[J.C. Jones [:jcj] (he/they)]

It's not obvious that `mach lint` is going to cause a modification of npm-shrinkwrap.json. Since that file gets modified by an automated process, perhaps it should be added to the default ignore file?

(Context: I appear to not be the only person to accidentally commit changes to that file from running mach lint right before pushing to inbound. :) )

Comment 1

[Dana Keeler (she/her) (use needinfo) [:keeler]]

I've hit this too. I've also reviewed patches where it was accidentally included unbeknownst to the author.

Comment 2

[Mark Banner (:standard8)]

The reason npm-shrinkwrap.json is in the tree is to try to ensure that developers configurations are the same as everyone else's. 

Adding it to an ignore file wouldn't work as the ignore files only affect untracked files.

Generally the differences at the moment are due to different people having different versions of npm. The latest versions of npm are much more stable (especially cross-platform), and with the proposed increase of min version to 5.5.1 [1], we should be in a lot better state.

[1] https://groups.google.com/d/msg/mozilla.dev.platform/OlPUPJ9x38s/CF3vzI2gCAAJ