Django development cannot find third party script in node_modules - django

Question

I'm working in a development environment with debug = True on Windows 10.
I have installed node and npm and run npm microm from the main folder of my project. It created a node_modules subfolder with a microm folder inside, among others. so the microm.js script is located in:
f:\roomtemp\node_modules\microm\microm.js
The relevant portion of my Settings file is:
BASE_DIR = os.path.dirname(os.path.dirname(os.path.abspath(__file__)))
...
STATIC_URL = '/static/'
STATIC_ROOT = os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'node_modules')
My template contains the following:
{% load staticfiles %}
<script src='{% static "/microm/microm.js" %}'></script>
When I attempt to load the page, the Chrome console shows a 404 and I see this in the server console:
"GET /static/microm/microm.js HTTP/1.1" 404 1661
I have read many SO questions that seem to contain the solution but none have worked so far. I've also searched high and wide on the internet. No luck so far. Any help would be much appreciated.
Mike

Answer 1

First of all I don't think you should STATIC_ROOT at your node_modules folder. STATIC_ROOT is where the django management commant collectstatic will put all the static files from all the apps into when you are readying for deploying. This process may result in some files being overwritten.
Please restore STATIC_URL to some sane value like
STATIC_ROOT = os.path.join(os.path.dirname(BASE_DIR), 'static')
Then use the STATICFILES_DIRS setting. This is what tells django what extra locations to look for static files.
STATICFILES_DIRS = [os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'node_modules')]
Finally, make sure that your STATICFILES_FINDERS has these
'django.contrib.staticfiles.finders.FileSystemFinder',
'django.contrib.staticfiles.finders.AppDirectoriesFinder',