I start to set up a pm2 deployment for a simple Next.js webpage.

If I do pm2 deploy production setup, the whole git repo is cloned to the server’s webspace (into /public_html/source).

As Next.js is a Node application, the build process requires additional disk space during build (for node_modules/). And those modules remain after build at the server.

I don’t want this, as I want to keep the production webspace as lean as possible.

Is there a way to use pm2 in the way that the build appears on a local PC (or within a GitLab CI runner VM) and just the result of the build will be deployed to the server?

If not, do you have any other suggestion how to achieve this?