Installing a local module using npm

Question

I have a downloaded module repo  I want to install it locally  not globally in another directory    What is an easy way to do this

User · Answer

Since asked and answered by the same person, I'll add a npm link as an alternative.

from docs:

This is handy for installing your own stuff, so that you can work on it and test it iteratively without having to continually rebuild.

cd ~/projects/node-bloggy  # go into the dir of your main project
npm link ../node-redis     # link the dir of your dependency

[Edit] As of NPM 2.0, you can declare local dependencies in package.json

"dependencies": {
    "bar": "file:../foo/bar"
  }

User · Answer

From the npm-link documentation   In the local module directory     cd   package-dir   npm link   In the directory of the project to use the module     cd   project-dir   npm link package-name     Or in one go using relative paths     cd   project-dir   npm link    package-dir   This is equivalent to using two commands above under the hood

User · Answer

Missing the main property   As previous people have answered npm --save    location-of-your-packages-root-directory   The    location-of-your-packages-root-directory however must have two things in order for it to work   1  package json in that directory pointed towards  2  main property in the package json must be set and working i g   main    src index js   if the entry file for    location-of-your-packages-root-directory is    location-of-your-packages-root-directory src index js

User · Answer

So I had a lot of problems with all of the solutions mentioned so far    I have a local package that I want to always reference  rather than npm link  because it won t be used outside of this project  for now  and also won t be uploaded to an npm repository for wide use as of yet  I also need it to work on Windows AND Unix  so sym-links aren t ideal  Pointing to the tar gz result of  npm package  works for the dependent npm package folder  however this causes issues with the npm cache if you want to update the package  It doesn t always pull in the new one from the referenced npm package when you update it  even if you blow away node modules and re-do your npm-install for your main project  so   This is what worked well for me  Main Project s Package json File Snippet     quot name quot    quot main-project-name quot      quot version quot    quot 0 0 0 quot      quot scripts quot          quot ng quot    quot ng quot                quot preinstall quot    quot cd    some-npm-package-angular  amp  amp  npm install  amp  amp  npm run build quot          quot private quot   true     quot dependencies quot                  quot  com some-npm-package-angular quot    quot file    some-npm-package-angular dist quot                This achieves 3 things   Avoids the common error  at least with angular npm projects   quot index ts is not part of the compilation  quot  - as it points to the built  dist  folder  Adds a preinstall step to build the referenced npm client package to make sure the dist folder of our dependent package is built  Avoids issues where referencing a tar gz file locally may be cached by npm and not updated in the main project without lots of cleaning troubleshooting re-building re-installing   I hope this is clear  and helps someone out  The tar gz approach also sort of works   npm install  file path  also sort of works  This was all based off of a generated client from an openapi spec that we wanted to keep in a separate location  rather than using copy-pasta for individual files         UPDATE         There are additional errors with a regular development flow with the above solution  as npm s versioning scheme with local files is absolutely terrible  If your dependent package changes frequently  this whole scheme breaks because npm will cache your last version of the project and then blow up when the SHA hash doesn t match anymore with what was saved in your package-lock json file  among other issues  As a result  I recommend using the   tgz approach with a version update for each change  This works by doing three things  First  For your dependent package  use the npm library  quot ng-packagr quot   This is automatically added to auto-generated client packages created by the angular-typescript code generator for OpenAPI 3 0  As a result the project that I m referencing has a  quot scripts quot  section within package json that looks like this     quot scripts quot          quot build quot    quot ng-packagr -p ng-package json quot        quot package quot    quot npm install  amp  amp  npm run build  amp  amp  cd dist  amp  amp  npm pack quot        And the project referencing this other project adds a pre-install step to make sure the dependent project is up to date and rebuilt before building itself     quot scripts quot          quot preinstall quot    quot npm run clean  amp  amp  cd    some-npm-package-angular  amp  amp  npm run package quot        Second Reference the built tgz npm package from your main project     quot dependencies quot          quot  com some-npm-package-angular quot    quot file    some-npm-package-angular dist some-npm-package-angular- lt packageVersion gt  tgz quot                Third Update the dependent package s version EVERY TIME you update the dependent package  You ll also have to update the version in the main project  If you do not do this  NPM will choke and use a cached version and explode when the SHA hash doesn t match  NPM versions file-based packages based on the filename changing  It won t check the package itself for an updated version in package json  and the NPM team stated that they will not fix this  but people keep raising the issue  https   github com microsoft WSL issues 348 for now  just update the   quot version quot    quot 1 0 0-build5 quot    In the dependent package s package json file  then update your reference to it in the main project to reference the new filename  ex   quot dependencies quot             quot  com some-npm-package-angular quot    quot file    some-npm-package-angular dist some-npm-package-angular-1 0 0-build5 tgz quot                  You get used to it  Just update the two package json files - version then the ref to the new filename  Hope that helps someone

User · Answer

Neither of these approaches  npm link or package json file dependency  work if the local module has peer dependencies that you only want to install in your project s scope   For example    local mymodule package json     name    mymodule      peerDependencies            foo     2 5        dev myproject package json     dependencies            mymodule    file  local mymodule        foo     2 5        In this scenario  npm sets up myproject s node modules  like this    dev myproject node modules    foo    mymodule - gt   local mymodule   When node loads mymodule and it does require  foo    node resolves the mymodule symlink  and then only looks in  local mymodule node modules   and its ancestors  for foo  which it doen t find   Instead  we want node to look in  local myproject node modules   since that s where were running our project from  and where foo is installed   So  we either need a way to tell node to not resolve this symlink when looking for foo  or we need a way to tell npm to install a copy of mymodule when the file dependency syntax is used in package json   I haven t found a way to do either  unfortunately

User · Answer

npm pack   package json  This is what worked for me   STEP 1  In module project  execute npm pack   This will build a  lt package-name gt - lt version gt  tar gz file   STEP 2  Move the file to the consumer project  Ideally you can put all such files in a tmp folder in your consumer-project root   STEP 3  Refer it in your package json    dependencies        my-package    file    tmp my-package-1 3 3 tar gz      STEP 4  Install the packages   npm install or npm i or yarn  Now  your package would be available in your consumer-project s node modules folder   Good Luck

User · Answer

you just provide one  lt folder gt  argument to npm install  argument should point toward the local folder instead of the package name   npm install  path

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