Building plugins with docker results in a successful build with no plugins installed

[bendemeyer]

I'm not sure if this issue is more appropriate here or in answer itself, since it relates to plugins but seems like it might be an issue with answer build generally. Anyway, I'm putting it in both and I can delete one if it's in the wrong place.

I'm trying to get answer running with some plugins, using the docker build process described here: https://answer.apache.org/docs/plugins/#docker-build

When I do this the answer build step completes successfully, but when I run answer plugin with the new binary I get an empty output. If I run the server and access the admin area, it shows no plugins are installed.

To troubleshoot, I set up a builder image with this basic Dockerfile:

FROM apache/answer AS answer-source

FROM golang:1.22-alpine AS golang-builder

COPY --from=answer-source /usr/bin/answer /usr/bin/answer

RUN apk --no-cache add build-base git bash nodejs npm go
RUN npm install -g [email protected]

And within that I run

answer build --with github.com/apache/answer-plugins/render-markdown-codehighlight --output /usr/bin/answer_new

That process runs, compiles, and appears to complete successfully. However, the plugins aren't actually installed in the output binary.

/go # answer_new plugin
/go # 

I can also see that the newly built binary is a little smaller than the original:

/usr/bin # ls -lah | grep answer
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     root       74.3M Nov 22 06:56 answer
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     root       68.5M Jan 23 15:05 answer_new

I'm running this on an M1 mac, and I've replicated this result in both arm & amd64 container architectures. I've also tried upgrading the build container to the latest version of pnpm to see if that made a difference, and it did not.

This is the (mostly) complete console output I get when I run answer build, with some of the big-long-lists-of-things truncated for the sake of making it more readable:

/go # answer build --with github.com/apache/answer-plugins/render-markdown-codehighlight --output /usr/bin/answer_new
try to build a new answer with plugins:
github.com/apache/answer-plugins/render-markdown-codehighlight
[build] build dir: /go/answer_build4202246818
[go mod tidy]
go: finding module for package github.com/apache/incubator-answer/cmd
go: finding module for package github.com/apache/answer-plugins/render-markdown-codehighlight
go: downloading github.com/apache/answer-plugins v1.2.1
go: downloading github.com/apache/answer-plugins/render-markdown-codehighlight v1.0.0
go: downloading github.com/apache/incubator-answer v1.4.1
go: found github.com/apache/answer-plugins/render-markdown-codehighlight in github.com/apache/answer-plugins/render-markdown-codehighlight v1.0.0
go: found github.com/apache/incubator-answer/cmd in github.com/apache/incubator-answer v1.4.1
go: downloading github.com/apache/answer-plugins/util v1.0.3-0.20250107030257-cf94ebc70954
go: downloading github.com/apache/answer v1.4.2-RC1.0.20250107023923-061894735091
go: downloading github.com/gin-gonic/gin v1.10.0
<TRUNCATED: "go: downloading {something}">
[go mod vendor]
[go list -mod=mod -m -f {{.Dir}} github.com/apache/incubator-answer]
try to copy dir from /go/answer_build4202246818/vendor/github.com/apache/incubator-answer-plugins to /go/answer_build4202246818/vendor/github.com/apache/incubator-answer/ui/src/plugins
[pnpm pre-install]

> [email protected] pre-install /go/answer_build4202246818/vendor/github.com/apache/incubator-answer/ui
> node ./scripts/importPlugins.js && pnpm install && node ./scripts/preinstall.js 

Lockfile is up to date, resolution step is skipped
Packages: +1591
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

   ╭──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╮
   │                                                                  │
   │                Update available! 8.9.2 → 9.15.4.                 │
   │   Changelog: https://github.com/pnpm/pnpm/releases/tag/v9.15.4   │
   │                Run "pnpm add -g pnpm" to update.                 │
   │                                                                  │
   │      Follow @pnpmjs for updates: https://twitter.com/pnpmjs      │
   │                                                                  │
   ╰──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╯

Downloading registry.npmjs.org/typescript/4.9.5: 11.62 MB/11.62 MB, done
Progress: resolved 1591, reused 0, downloaded 1589, added 1591, done
node_modules/.pnpm/[email protected]/node_modules/core-js-pure: Running postinstall script, done in 34ms
node_modules/.pnpm/[email protected]/node_modules/core-js: Running postinstall script, done in 32ms

dependencies:
+ @codemirror/lang-markdown 6.2.5
+ @codemirror/language-data 6.5.1
+ @codemirror/state 6.4.1
+ @codemirror/view 6.26.3
+ axios 1.7.7
+ bootstrap 5.3.2
<TRUNCATED: "+ {dependency}">

devDependencies:
+ @commitlint/cli 17.1.2
+ @commitlint/config-conventional 17.2.0
+ @fullhuman/postcss-purgecss 4.1.3
+ @testing-library/dom 8.18.1
+ @testing-library/jest-dom 4.2.4
<TRUNCATED: "+ {dependency}">

. prepare$ pnpm build:packages
│ > [email protected] build:packages /go/answer_build4202246818/vendor/github.com/apache/incubator-answer/ui
│ > pnpm -r --filter=./src/plugins/* run build
│ No projects matched the filters in "/go/answer_build4202246818/vendor/github.com/apache/incubator-answer/ui"
└─ Done in 555ms
Done in 9.9s
[pnpm build]

> [email protected] build /go/answer_build4202246818/vendor/github.com/apache/incubator-answer/ui
> node ./scripts/env.js && react-app-rewired build

Creating an optimized production build...
Browserslist: caniuse-lite is outdated. Please run:
  npx update-browserslist-db@latest
  Why you should do it regularly: https://github.com/browserslist/update-db#readme
Browserslist: caniuse-lite is outdated. Please run:
  npx update-browserslist-db@latest
  Why you should do it regularly: https://github.com/browserslist/update-db#readme
Compiled with warnings.

Module not found: Error: Can't resolve 'buffer' in '/go/answer_build4202246818/vendor/github.com/apache/incubator-answer/ui/node_modules/.pnpm/[email protected]/node_modules/js-yaml/lib/js-yaml/type'
BREAKING CHANGE: webpack < 5 used to include polyfills for node.js core modules by default.
This is no longer the case. Verify if you need this module and configure a polyfill for it.

If you want to include a polyfill, you need to:
	- add a fallback 'resolve.fallback: { "buffer": require.resolve("buffer/") }'
	- install 'buffer'
If you don't want to include a polyfill, you can use an empty module like this:
	resolve.fallback: { "buffer": false }

Search for the keywords to learn more about each warning.
To ignore, add // eslint-disable-next-line to the line before.

File sizes after gzip:

  102.29 kB  build/static/js/codemirror.8ce63365.js
  70.83 kB   build/static/js/lezer.5966669a.js
  65.01 kB   build/static/js/chunk-nodesInitial.2237608c.chunk.js
  49.13 kB   build/static/js/main.dadb9922.js
  48.88 kB   build/static/js/chunk-mix2.e38b5d14.chunk.js
  <TRUNCATED: "{size} {filename}">

The project was built assuming it is hosted at /.
You can control this with the homepage field in your package.json.

The build folder is ready to be deployed.
You may serve it with a static server:

  npm install -g serve
  serve -s build

Find out more about deployment here:

  https://cra.link/deployment

try to merge i18n files
i18n dir:  /go/answer_build4202246818/vendor/github.com/apache/answer-plugins/render-markdown-codehighlight/i18n
[go build -ldflags -X github.com/apache/incubator-answer/cmd.Version=1.4.1 -X github.com/apache/incubator-answer/cmd.Revision=c2ad8c6 -X github.com/apache/incubator-answer/cmd.Time=1732256436 -o /usr/bin/answer_new .]
build new answer successfully /usr/bin/answer_new

[LinkinStars]

duplicate apache/answer#1235