support NODE_PATH / nodePaths

[threepointone]

Not all modules will be under node_modules, especially in scenaros where folks vendor modules into their own repo. We should support passing NODE_PATH as an env var or nodePaths as config.

[petebacondarwin]

The Node.js docs suggest that NODE_PATH is legacy and not really how things should be done.

Given that we are able to compile TypeScript, it would also be necessary to add to the "paths" mapping property in tsconfig.json so that TSC can also find the dependencies.
So I think the best way to solve this would be to implement (either ourselves or using a library) an esbuild plugin that does something like: https://www.npmjs.com/package/@esbuild-plugins/tsconfig-paths

[threepointone]

I checked, and esbuild reads from compilerOptions.paths already, so the plug-in shouldn't be necessary

I agree with you original point. Could just close this for now, or revisit in 2.1

[petebacondarwin]

Let's close this and reopen if someone finds a scenario we don't support out-of-the-box.