How can I configure Storybook.js Webpack to work with absolute image paths in CSS modules in a Next.js project?

Issue

I am trying to configure Storybook to work with Next.js, Ant Design, Less, and TypeScript. In Next.js, images have to be stored in the public/ folder and referenced with absolute paths to be used throughout the project. I am having trouble configuring the Storybook.js webpack to be able to resolve these absolute image paths.

For example, in a CSS module I could have:

.testImage {
  background-image: url('/images/cucumber.png');
  background-repeat: no-repeat;
  background-size: contain;
  height: 300px;
  width: 300px;
}

But Storybook will fail when building with this error:

ERROR in ./common/layout/TestImage/TestImage.module.css (./node_modules/css-loader/dist/cjs.js??ref--15-1!./common/layout/TestImage/TestImage.module.css)
Module build failed (from ./node_modules/css-loader/dist/cjs.js):
Error: Can't resolve '/images/cucumber.png' in '/Users/gerritvanderlugt/Development/misc/storybook-issue/common/layout/TestImage'
    at /Users/gerritvanderlugt/Development/misc/storybook-issue/node_modules/enhanced-resolve/lib/Resolver.js:209:21
    at /Users/gerritvanderlugt/Development/misc/storybook-issue/node_modules/enhanced-resolve/lib/Resolver.js:285:5
    at eval (eval at create (/Users/gerritvanderlugt/Development/misc/storybook-issue/node_modules/tapable/lib/HookCodeFactory.js:33:10), <anonymous>:15:1)
    at /Users/gerritvanderlugt/Development/misc/storybook-issue/node_modules/enhanced-resolve/lib/UnsafeCachePlugin.js:44:7
    at /Users/gerritvanderlugt/Development/misc/storybook-issue/node_modules/enhanced-resolve/lib/Resolver.js:285:5
    at eval (eval at create (/Users/gerritvanderlugt/Development/misc/storybook-issue/node_modules/tapable/lib/HookCodeFactory.js:33:10), <anonymous>:15:1)
    at /Users/gerritvanderlugt/Development/misc/storybook-issue/node_modules/enhanced-resolve/lib/Resolver.js:285:5
    at eval (eval at create (/Users/gerritvanderlugt/Development/misc/storybook-issue/node_modules/tapable/lib/HookCodeFactory.js:33:10), <anonymous>:27:1)
    at /Users/gerritvanderlugt/Development/misc/storybook-issue/node_modules/enhanced-resolve/lib/DescriptionFilePlugin.js:67:43
    at /Users/gerritvanderlugt/Development/misc/storybook-issue/node_modules/enhanced-resolve/lib/Resolver.js:285:5
    at eval (eval at create (/Users/gerritvanderlugt/Development/misc/storybook-issue/node_modules/tapable/lib/HookCodeFactory.js:33:10), <anonymous>:16:1)
    at /Users/gerritvanderlugt/Development/misc/storybook-issue/node_modules/enhanced-resolve/lib/Resolver.js:285:5
    at eval (eval at create (/Users/gerritvanderlugt/Development/misc/storybook-issue/node_modules/tapable/lib/HookCodeFactory.js:33:10), <anonymous>:16:1)
    at /Users/gerritvanderlugt/Development/misc/storybook-issue/node_modules/enhanced-resolve/lib/Resolver.js:285:5
    at eval (eval at create (/Users/gerritvanderlugt/Development/misc/storybook-issue/node_modules/tapable/lib/HookCodeFactory.js:33:10), <anonymous>:16:1)
    at /Users/gerritvanderlugt/Development/misc/storybook-issue/node_modules/enhanced-resolve/lib/Resolver.js:285:5
 @ ./common/layout/TestImage/TestImage.module.css 2:12-115 9:17-24 13:7-14 45:20-27 47:4-60:5 49:6-59:7 50:38-45 56:26-33 58:21-28 68:15-22
 @ ./common/layout/TestImage/TestImage.tsx
 @ ./common/layout/TestImage/index.tsx
 @ ./common/layout/TestImage/TestImage.stories.tsx
 @ . sync ^\.(?:(?:^|\/|(?:(?:(?!(?:^|\/)\.).)*?)\/)(?!\.)(?=.)[^/]*?\.stories\.(js|jsx|ts|tsx))$
 @ ./.storybook/generated-stories-entry.js
 @ multi ./node_modules/@storybook/core/dist/server/common/polyfills.js ./node_modules/@storybook/core/dist/server/preview/globals.js ./.storybook/storybook-init-framework-entry.js ./node_modules/@storybook/addon-docs/dist/frameworks/common/config.js-generated-other-entry.js ./node_modules/@storybook/addon-docs/dist/frameworks/react/config.js-generated-other-entry.js ./node_modules/@storybook/addon-links/dist/preset/addDecorator.js-generated-other-entry.js ./node_modules/@storybook/addon-actions/dist/preset/addDecorator.js-generated-other-entry.js ./node_modules/@storybook/addon-actions/dist/preset/addArgs.js-generated-other-entry.js ./node_modules/@storybook/addon-backgrounds/dist/preset/defaultParameters.js-generated-other-entry.js ./.storybook/preview.js-generated-config-entry.js ./.storybook/generated-stories-entry.js (webpack)-hot-middleware/client.js?reload=true&quiet=false&noInfo=undefined

I tried a few different things with file-loader, url-loader and css-loader but was unable to get it working. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Here is a GitHub repo where the issue can be reproduce by running npm install and npm run storybook.

Solution

Basically you already have had an image loader configured which means you're able to load image in your app. The issue is css-loader doesn't resolve absolute path /images/cucumber.png (since it just supports relative path). In order to fix this, you can manually resolve as following:

newConfig.resolve.alias['/images/cucumber.png'] = path.resolve(__dirname, '../public/images/cucumber.png');

return newConfig;

Answered By - tmhao2005