parcel build building in root folder instead of ./dist - build

Question

I am very confused as to why my parcel build script is spewing everything into the root folder instead of into ./dist, I have tried specifying with and without output paths with no luck.
What confuses me more is how my start script "parcel index.html" outputs into the dist folder.
To clarify on the below, I am running: npm run build
Here's my package.json
Thank you for any help!
{
"name": "eclaires","version": "1.0.0",
"description": "",
"main": "index.html",
"browserslist": "last 10 versions",
"scripts": {
"watch:sass": "node-sass sass/main.scss css/style.css -w",
"start": "parcel index.html",
"devserver": "live-server",
"compile:sass": "node-sass sass/main.scss css/style.comp.css",
"prefix:css": "postcss css/style.comp.css --use autoprefixer -o css/style.prefix.css",
"compress:css": "node-sass css/style.prefix.css css/style.css --output-style compressed",
"build:css": "npm-run-all compile:sass prefix:css compress:css",
"build:html": "parcel build index.html --dist-dir ./dist",
"build": "npm-run-all build:css build:html"
},
"author": "LY",
"license": "ISC",
"dependencies": {},
"devDependencies": {
"autoprefixer": "^10.2.4",
"core-js": "^3.8.3",
"node-sass": "^5.0.0",
"npm-run-all": "^4.1.5",
"parcel": "^2.0.0-beta.1",
"postcss": "^8.2.6",
"postcss-cli": "^8.3.1"
}
}

Answer 1

In general, use the --dist-dir <dir> option during build:
parcel build index.js --dist-dir ./dist
or specify the build directory for your project at package.json#main.
{
"main": "dist/index.js"
"scripts": {
"build": "parcel build"
}
}
Your main is set to the root index.html, which is why it is output there.
Also, the reason why running your npm start outputs to dist but your npm build outputs to root is because your start script is set to:
"start": "parcel index.html",
which is equivalent to Parcel's default serve command:
parcel serve index.html
Parcel's serve command may behave differently than build.

Answer 2

It looks like you're not setting up the output directory.
According to the documentation, you can do like I did below, this will create the dist folder and the files:
https://parceljs.org/cli.html
{
"name": "silicia",
"version": "1.0.0",
"description": "",
"main": "index.html",
"dependencies": {
"parcel": "^1.12.3"
},
"devDependencies": {
"sass": "^1.32.8"
},
"scripts": {
"dev": "parcel index.html",
"build": "parcel build index.html --out-dir ./dist"
},
"author": "Jesus Ramirez",
"license": "ISC"
}