Error installing from source locally, cannot find module '../services/members/commenting'

[dimitristrechas]

Hi all, I am trying to install Ghost locally on my macOS to tinker with the codebase.

yarn version: v.1.22.22
node version: v22.22.0

Following the steps in the documentation, I run into an issue on yarn setup

Running knex-migrator init
warning ghost@6.16.1: The engine "cli" appears to be invalid.
$ /Users/A200269715/dev/Ghost/node_modules/.bin/knex-migrator init
\[2026-01-31 11:01:42\] ERROR Cannot find module '../services/members/commenting'
Require stack:
\- /Users/A200269715/dev/Ghost/ghost/core/core/server/models/member.js
\- /Users/A200269715/dev/Ghost/ghost/core/core/server/models/index.js
\- /Users/A200269715/dev/Ghost/ghost/core/core/server/data/migrations/hooks/init/before.js
\- /Users/A200269715/dev/Ghost/ghost/core/core/server/data/migrations/hooks/init/index.js
\- /Users/A200269715/dev/Ghost/node_modules/knex-migrator/lib/index.js
\- /Users/A200269715/dev/Ghost/node_modules/knex-migrator/lib/utils.js
\- /Users/A200269715/dev/Ghost/node_modules/knex-migrator/bin/knex-migrator-init

Cannot find module '../services/members/commenting'
Require stack:
\- /Users/A200269715/dev/Ghost/ghost/core/core/server/models/member.js
\- /Users/A200269715/dev/Ghost/ghost/core/core/server/models/index.js
\- /Users/A200269715/dev/Ghost/ghost/core/core/server/data/migrations/hooks/init/before.js
\- /Users/A200269715/dev/Ghost/ghost/core/core/server/data/migrations/hooks/init/index.js
\- /Users/A200269715/dev/Ghost/node_modules/knex-migrator/lib/index.js
\- /Users/A200269715/dev/Ghost/node_modules/knex-migrator/lib/utils.js
\- /Users/A200269715/dev/Ghost/node_modules/knex-migrator/bin/knex-migrator-init

"OuterError: Cannot find module '../services/members/commenting'\\nRequire stack:\\n- /Users/A200269715/dev/Ghost/ghost/core/core/server/models/member.js\\n- /Users/A200269715/dev/Ghost/ghost/core/core/server/models/index.js\\n- /Users/A200269715/dev/Ghost/ghost/core/core/server/data/migrations/hooks/init/before.js\\n- /Users/A200269715/dev/Ghost/ghost/core/core/server/data/migrations/hooks/init/index.js\\n- /Users/A200269715/dev/Ghost/node_modules/knex-migrator/lib/index.js\\n- /Users/A200269715/dev/Ghost/node_modules/knex-migrator/lib/utils.js\\n- /Users/A200269715/dev/Ghost/node_modules/knex-migrator/bin/knex-migrator-init"

Error ID:
    400

Error Code:
    MODULE_NOT_FOUND

But checking docker-desktop I see redis/mysql containers running.

Without stoping the above containers, if I then try to run yarn dev I get the following error:

Error response from daemon: failed to set up container networking: driver failed programming external connectivity on endpoint ghost-dev-mysql
(73733d4ae18c4c1cca46cd4d68694a0127fa946815a91d05a16403886f10469a): Bind for 0.0.0.0:3306 failed: port is already allocated

Which makes sense since port 3306 is occupied by the mysql container started by yarn setup.

If I stop the mysql/redis containers and then run yarn dev everything seems to work as expected.

So my questions are:

• Is there a root cause for the error on yarn setup that I am missing?
• Is it expected that I have to stop the containers started by yarn setup before running yarn dev?

I’ll keep investigating but in case others have any pointers feel free to share, thanks!