> I'm not current on Node features, but that looks dangerous to do. Is that equivalent to reading the file and `eval()`ing it?

No:

    > const fs = require('fs')
    undefined
    > fs.writeFileSync('file.js', 'console.log("yes")'); require('./file')
    yes
    {}
    > fs.writeFileSync('file.json', 'console.log("no")'); require('./file.json')
    SyntaxError: file.json: Unexpected token c in JSON at position 0