# Yarn zip command fails

**URL:** <https://forum.ghost.org/t/yarn-zip-command-fails/62259>\
**Category:** Themes\
**Created:** [March 23, 2026, 4:40pm UTC](https://forum.ghost.org/t/yarn-zip-command-fails/62259 "2026-03-23T16:40:54Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![darthmoridin](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex015/user_avatar/forum.ghost.org/darthmoridin/32/39918_2.png) [@darthmoridin](https://forum.ghost.org/u/darthmoridin)\
**Post date:** [March 23, 2026, 4:40pm UTC](https://forum.ghost.org/t/yarn-zip-command-fails/62259/1 "2026-03-23T16:40:54Z")

</div>

I have done a lot of searching here and elsewhere and haven’t been able to find a solution yet.

I’ve got **yarn** and **node** and **gulp** installed for my development theme. I’m trying to .zip the theme so I can upload it to my hosted ghost site. I have not been able to get `yarn zip` to fully execute. Each run produces this:

```auto
yarn run v1.22.22
warning source-dnn@1.0: The engine "ghost" appears to be invalid.
$ gulp zip
[09:32:16] Using gulpfile ~/Sites/.../content/themes/source-dnn/gulpfile.js
[09:32:16] Starting 'zip'...
[09:32:16] Starting 'css'...
[09:32:16] Finished 'css' after 198 ms
[09:32:16] Starting 'js'...
[09:32:16] Finished 'js' after 438 ms
[09:32:16] Starting 'locales'...
[09:32:16] Finished 'locales' after 2.81 ms
[09:32:16] Starting 'zipper'...
[09:32:16] 'zipper' errored after 1.06 ms
[09:32:16] TypeError: zip is not a function
    at zipper (/Users/.../content/themes/source-dnn/gulpfile.js:86:9)
    at bound (node:domain:433:15)
    at runBound (node:domain:444:12)
    at asyncRunner (/Users/.../content/themes/source-dnn/node_modules/async-done/index.js:52:18)
    at process.processTicksAndRejections (node:internal/process/task_queues:85:11)
[09:32:16] 'zip' errored after 642 ms
error Command failed with exit code 1.

```

I’m assuming the problem is **TypeError: zip is not a function** , but I haven’t been able to find anything regarding this.

Ghost version **6.22.1**

Ghost-cli version **1.28.4**

NPM version **10.9.4**

Node version **22.22.0**

Yarn version **1.22.22**

Gulp version **5.0.1** (local) **3.1.0** (cli)

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![darthmoridin](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex015/user_avatar/forum.ghost.org/darthmoridin/32/39918_2.png) [@darthmoridin](https://forum.ghost.org/u/darthmoridin)\
**Post date:** [March 23, 2026, 4:48pm UTC](https://forum.ghost.org/t/yarn-zip-command-fails/62259/2 "2026-03-23T16:48:50Z")

</div>

Running `yarn add gulp-zip@5.1.0 --dev` fixed it.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Johan\_Bouduin](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex015/user_avatar/forum.ghost.org/johan_bouduin/32/3922_2.png) [@Johan\_Bouduin](https://forum.ghost.org/u/Johan_Bouduin)\
**Post date:** [March 30, 2026, 12:28pm UTC](https://forum.ghost.org/t/yarn-zip-command-fails/62259/3 "2026-03-30T12:28:12Z")

</div>

I had the same issue. It was an incompatibility problem between node v22 required for running ghost and building the zipfile with gulp which requires a lower version of node.

I threw out gulp and replaced it with vite and postcss.