Netlify deploy with --no-build flag is still building edge functions

[petervmeijgaard]

Describe the bug

Expected behavior

According to the Netlify CLI documentation for netlify deploy:

--no-build Do not run build command before deploying. Only use this if you have no need for a build or your project has already been built.

When running:

• netlify build
  successfully bundles Edge Functions and places artifacts (.netlify/edge-functions/ or similar)
• netlify deploy --no-build
  should only upload already-built assets + already-bundled Edge Functions without re-running any bundling

Observed behavior

Even with --no-build, the CLI still runs the Edge Functions bundler:

⠋ Bundling edge functions...
✘ [ERROR] Could not resolve "[REDACTED]"
    [REDACTED]:
      1 │ import * as mod from "[REDACTED]";
        ╵ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  The module "./dist/index.js" was not found on the file system:
    [REDACTED]:
      11 │ "default": "./dist/index.js"
         ╵ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You can mark the path "[REDACTED]" as external to exclude it from the bundle, which will remove this error and leave the unresolved path in the bundle.

This fails because:

• The bundler is looking for source files and/or workspace-internal dist/ artifacts that were produced during the earlier netlify build / monorepo build step.
• Those files are not present (or not visible) in the clean GitLab CI job for the deploy stage.
• This forces us to either:
  • Artifact-upload all internal dist/ folders from every workspace/package used by Edge Functions
    This is very messy & results in large artifacts
  • Or give up on separating build & deploy and run full build again in the deploy job (loses the separation benefit)

Why this matters (business / DX impact)

• In monorepos with many packages, bundling internal dist/ folders into artifacts just to satisfy the Edge Functions bundler is inefficient and error-prone.
• It defeats one of the main advertised benefits of --no-build: clean separation of build & deploy for faster / more predictable CI, especially on large repos.
• Regular (non-edge) Functions appear to respect --no-build much better (pre-zipped bundles are reused).

Steps to reproduce

1. Create a new monorepo where you add a separate Edge Function in a package
2. Include the Edge Function within the application
3. Run netlify build
4. Remove the dist folder of the Edge Function package
5. Run netlify deploy
6. See that it can't find the necessary files to create the Edge Function bundle

Configuration

[build]
  publish = "dist"           # or wherever your publish dir is
  command = "turbo run build"  # or similar monorepo build command

[[edge_functions]]
  path = "/*"
  function = "my-function"

Environment

  System:
    OS: macOS 15.7.3
    CPU: (12) arm64 Apple M4 Pro
    Memory: 196.92 MB / 24.00 GB
    Shell: 5.9 - /bin/zsh
  Binaries:
    Node: 22.22.0 - /Users/pvanmeijgaard/.local/state/fnm_multishells/11669_1770277129243/bin/node
    npm: 10.9.4 - /Users/pvanmeijgaard/.local/state/fnm_multishells/11669_1770277129243/bin/npm
    pnpm: 10.28.1 - /Users/pvanmeijgaard/.local/state/fnm_multishells/11669_1770277129243/bin/pnpm
    bun: 1.3.7 - /opt/homebrew/bin/bun