Weird Rails 7 build break due to outdated npm

I am working on a new Ruby on Rails project with a friend. We bumped into a few development blockers that I have never experienced before. It turns out that if you are using an outdated version on npm, the pacakage.json which gets generated when you create a new Rails application will not include the necessary scripts needed in order to get ./bin/dev working.

Assuming your Ruby on Rails application is using cssbundling and jsbundling–if you see any build errors when trying to run the server with ./bin/dev you may want to try the following:

• First update your node version to a newer stable version. I set mine to 18.17.1. I use asdf to manage ruby and nodejs versions. asdf local nodejs 18.17.1
• Then update your npm version. I am using version 8.19.4. npm install -g npm@8.19.4
• re-install cssbundling rails css:install:bootstrap
• re-install jsbundling rails javascript:install:esbuild

In package.json, check to see if the scripts key includes five items for the value. Your Procfile.dev should look like the following:

web: env RUBY_DEBUG_OPEN=true bin/rails server
js: yarn build --watch
css: yarn watch:css

After updating npm and node version, yarn commands should work and you should be able to run the server with ./bin/dev.