import.meta is an object available inside of an ES module that contains useful information about the environment in which the module runs.

import.meta object is extensible, and the host can write any useful information into it.

Let's see what useful information about the module you can access using import.meta.

1. Module's URL (the browser)

A useful property both browser and Node.js assign to import.meta is the url property.

In a browser, import.meta.url contains the absolute URL to the current ES module.

For example, let's define a module named main.mjs that logs the value of the import.meta.url:

If you load main.mjs module using a script tag (adding type="module" attribute) in a web page located at http://mysite.com:

Open the demo.

Then import.meta.url will contain the absolute URL to the script, e.g. 'http://mysite.com/main.mjs'.

2. Module's path (Node.js)

But if you run main.mjs as a Node.js script:

Then import.meta.url will contain the absolute path to the module, e.g. 'file:///absolute-path/main.mjs'.

The absolute path inside import.meta.url is always prefixed with file://.

Challenge: create the file main.mjs on your computer, then run node main.mjs. What is logged to your console?

3. Relative path resolver (Node.js)

Node.js also provides under import.meta an async function:

that resolves a relative specifier in regards to a parent absolute path.

parent argument is optional and defaults to the current module absolute path (i.e. import.meta.url).

The function is still experimental and is available with --experimental-import-meta-resolve flag.

Let's say that you have a module main.mjs under the absolute path /home/user/web-app/main.mjs. You also have a module helper.mjs that is located in the same folder as main.mjs. You'd like to get the absolute path to helper.mjs.

Here's how you could do it:

Executing await import.meta.resolve('./helper.mjs') resolves './helper.mjs' to '/home/user/web-app/helper.mjs' absolute path.

If the resolved module doesn't exist, then the function would throw a module not found error.

4. Conclusion

import.meta is an object available inside the ES module scope. This object contains useful metadata information about the module.

A useful module meta property is import.meta.url — which indicates the absolute URL of the module in the browser or the absolute path in Node.js (prefixed with file://).

Challenge: without using import.meta.url, how would you determine the URL of the script tag?