name 'json' is not defined

[JRodDynamite]

🐞 bug report

Affected Rule

The issue is caused by the rule: `npm_install`

Is this a regression?

Yes, the previous version in which this bug was not present was: 3.0.0

Description

On updating rules_nodejs to version 4.1.0, I'm unable to build anything.

I even tried clearing the bazel clean --expunge and also rm -rf ~/.cache/bazel but still faced this issue.

🔬 Minimal Reproduction

Simply setting up the following code in the WORKSPACE and running bazel sync I was able to reproduce the issue

load("@bazel_tools//tools/build_defs/repo:http.bzl", "http_archive")

http_archive(
    name = "build_bazel_rules_nodejs",
    sha256 = "b32a4713b45095e9e1921a7fcb1adf584bc05959f3336e7351bcf77f015a2d7c",
    urls = ["https://github.com/bazelbuild/rules_nodejs/releases/download/4.1.0/rules_nodejs-4.1.0.tar.gz"],
)

load("@build_bazel_rules_nodejs//:index.bzl", "npm_install")

🔥 Exception or Error

> bazel sync
Extracting Bazel installation...
Starting local Bazel server and connecting to it...
ERROR: /home/jason/.cache/bazel/_bazel_jason/3e1bb1e4a7ba7cce5fa93aa0d10779e8/external/build_bazel_rules_nodejs/internal/npm_install/npm_install.bzl:442:28: name 'json' is not defined
ERROR: /home/jason/.cache/bazel/_bazel_jason/3e1bb1e4a7ba7cce5fa93aa0d10779e8/external/build_bazel_rules_nodejs/internal/npm_install/npm_install.bzl:554:20: name 'json' is not defined
ERROR: /home/jason/.cache/bazel/_bazel_jason/3e1bb1e4a7ba7cce5fa93aa0d10779e8/external/build_bazel_rules_nodejs/internal/npm_install/npm_install.bzl:585:19: name 'json' is not defined
ERROR: error loading package '': in /home/jason/.cache/bazel/_bazel_jason/3e1bb1e4a7ba7cce5fa93aa0d10779e8/external/build_bazel_rules_nodejs/index.bzl: Extension 'internal/npm_install/npm_install.bzl' has errors
Loading: loading...

🌍 Your Environment

Operating System:

  CentOS Linux release 8.3.2011

Output of bazel version:

  bazel3-3.7.1-0.el7.x86_64

Rules_nodejs version:

  4.1.0

[thesayyn]

Hey there.

Problem is that you are running an old version of bazel which we don’t test against. json was introduced in bazel version 4.0.0 and we test against 4.1.0

Could you upgrade your bazel installation and try again?

[JRodDynamite]

Could you upgrade your bazel installation and try again?

@thesayyn - Let me give that a try.

[alexeagle]

note that we do have some error checking for this case
https://github.com/bazelbuild/rules_nodejs/blob/stable/internal/node/node_repositories.bzl#L37-L43
but it seems that you didn't call node_repositories? or maybe bazel sync somehow doesn't run that check

[JRodDynamite]

@alexeagle @thesayyn - Thanks a lot! Updating bazel to 4.2.1 resolved this issue for me. Closing the issue.