Do Node openfaas functions require a package.json in the deployment bundle?

Question

Looking at openfaas Node templates there is a pattern of having a nested package.json in the functions folder.

Seeing a nested package.json file (location other than the root) in a non-monorepo npm package is code smell to me and causes some dev flow problems:

1. A nested package-lock.json artifact being committed
2. cloning the repo and running npm ci does not install all the dependencies

The latter is particularly painful. A developer cloning an openfaas repo for the first time and running npm ci or npm i will not have all the dependencies installed to run the function locally. Same issue for any continuous integration, like Jenkins, that runs automated tests.

So one could add the dependencies in the function/package.json to the root package.json (prone to human error). Or write scripts that cd function && npm ci && cd .. && npm run start:whatever to work around this but obviously that is a bit ridiculous.

• Does openfaas require the package.json dependency manifest for publishing/runtime purposes?
• If not, why does openfaas suggest this nested package.json in function directory pattern for it's Node templates