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| npm command-line interface |
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| <h1 id="developers">developers</h1> |
| <span class="description">Developer Guide</span> |
| </header> |
|
|
| <section id="table_of_contents"> |
| <h2 id="table-of-contents">Table of contents</h2> |
| <div id="_table_of_contents"><ul><li><a href="#description">Description</a></li><li><a href="#about-these-documents">About These Documents</a></li><li><a href="#what-is-a-package">What is a Package</a></li><li><a href="#the-packagejson-file">The package.json File</a></li><li><a href="#keeping-files-out-of-your-package">Keeping files <em>out</em> of your Package</a></li><ul><li><a href="#testing-whether-your-npmignore-or-files-config-works">Testing whether your <code>.npmignore</code> or <code>files</code> config works</a></li></ul><li><a href="#link-packages">Link Packages</a></li><li><a href="#before-publishing-make-sure-your-package-installs-and-works">Before Publishing: Make Sure Your Package Installs and Works</a></li><li><a href="#create-a-user-account">Create a User Account</a></li><li><a href="#publish-your-package">Publish your Package</a></li><li><a href="#brag-about-it">Brag about it</a></li><li><a href="#see-also">See also</a></li></ul></div> |
| </section> |
|
|
| <div id="_content"><h3 id="description">Description</h3> |
| <p>So, you've decided to use npm to develop (and maybe publish/deploy) |
| your project.</p> |
| <p>Fantastic!</p> |
| <p>There are a few things that you need to do above the simple steps |
| that your users will do to install your program.</p> |
| <h3 id="about-these-documents">About These Documents</h3> |
| <p>These are man pages. If you install npm, you should be able to |
| then do <code>man npm-thing</code> to get the documentation on a particular |
| topic, or <code>npm help thing</code> to see the same information.</p> |
| <h3 id="what-is-a-package">What is a Package</h3> |
| <p>A package is:</p> |
| <ul> |
| <li>a) a folder containing a program described by a package.json file</li> |
| <li>b) a gzipped tarball containing (a)</li> |
| <li>c) a url that resolves to (b)</li> |
| <li>d) a <code><name>@<version></code> that is published on the registry with (c)</li> |
| <li>e) a <code><name>@<tag></code> that points to (d)</li> |
| <li>f) a <code><name></code> that has a "latest" tag satisfying (e)</li> |
| <li>g) a <code>git</code> url that, when cloned, results in (a).</li> |
| </ul> |
| <p>Even if you never publish your package, you can still get a lot of |
| benefits of using npm if you just want to write a node program (a), and |
| perhaps if you also want to be able to easily install it elsewhere |
| after packing it up into a tarball (b).</p> |
| <p>Git urls can be of the form:</p> |
| <pre><code class="language-bash">git://github.com/user/project.git#commit-ish |
| git+ssh://user@hostname:project.git#commit-ish |
| git+http://user@hostname/project/blah.git#commit-ish |
| git+https://user@hostname/project/blah.git#commit-ish |
| </code></pre> |
| <p>The <code>commit-ish</code> can be any tag, sha, or branch which can be supplied as |
| an argument to <code>git checkout</code>. The default is whatever the repository uses |
| as its default branch.</p> |
| <h3 id="the-packagejson-file">The package.json File</h3> |
| <p>You need to have a <code>package.json</code> file in the root of your project to do |
| much of anything with npm. That is basically the whole interface.</p> |
| <p>See <a href="../configuring-npm/package-json.html"><code>package.json</code></a> for details about what |
| goes in that file. At the very least, you need:</p> |
| <ul> |
| <li> |
| <p>name: This should be a string that identifies your project. Please do |
| not use the name to specify that it runs on node, or is in JavaScript. |
| You can use the "engines" field to explicitly state the versions of node |
| (or whatever else) that your program requires, and it's pretty well |
| assumed that it's JavaScript.</p> |
| <p>It does not necessarily need to match your github repository name.</p> |
| <p>So, <code>node-foo</code> and <code>bar-js</code> are bad names. <code>foo</code> or <code>bar</code> are better.</p> |
| </li> |
| <li> |
| <p>version: A semver-compatible version.</p> |
| </li> |
| <li> |
| <p>engines: Specify the versions of node (or whatever else) that your |
| program runs on. The node API changes a lot, and there may be bugs or |
| new functionality that you depend on. Be explicit.</p> |
| </li> |
| <li> |
| <p>author: Take some credit.</p> |
| </li> |
| <li> |
| <p>scripts: If you have a special compilation or installation script, then |
| you should put it in the <code>scripts</code> object. You should definitely have at |
| least a basic smoke-test command as the "scripts.test" field. See |
| <a href="../using-npm/scripts.html">scripts</a>.</p> |
| </li> |
| <li> |
| <p>main: If you have a single module that serves as the entry point to your |
| program (like what the "foo" package gives you at require("foo")), then |
| you need to specify that in the "main" field.</p> |
| </li> |
| <li> |
| <p>directories: This is an object mapping names to folders. The best ones |
| to include are "lib" and "doc", but if you use "man" to specify a folder |
| full of man pages, they'll get installed just like these ones.</p> |
| </li> |
| </ul> |
| <p>You can use <code>npm init</code> in the root of your package in order to get you |
| started with a pretty basic package.json file. See <a href="../commands/npm-init.html"><code>npm init</code></a> for more info.</p> |
| <h3 id="keeping-files-out-of-your-package">Keeping files <em>out</em> of your Package</h3> |
| <p>Use a <code>.npmignore</code> file to keep stuff out of your package. If there's no |
| <code>.npmignore</code> file, but there <em>is</em> a <code>.gitignore</code> file, then npm will ignore |
| the stuff matched by the <code>.gitignore</code> file. If you <em>want</em> to include |
| something that is excluded by your <code>.gitignore</code> file, you can create an |
| empty <code>.npmignore</code> file to override it. Like <code>git</code>, <code>npm</code> looks for |
| <code>.npmignore</code> and <code>.gitignore</code> files in all subdirectories of your package, |
| not only the root directory.</p> |
| <p><code>.npmignore</code> files follow the <a href="https://git-scm.com/book/en/v2/Git-Basics-Recording-Changes-to-the-Repository#_ignoring">same pattern |
| rules</a> |
| as <code>.gitignore</code> files:</p> |
| <ul> |
| <li>Blank lines or lines starting with <code>#</code> are ignored.</li> |
| <li>Standard glob patterns work.</li> |
| <li>You can end patterns with a forward slash <code>/</code> to specify a directory.</li> |
| <li>You can negate a pattern by starting it with an exclamation point <code>!</code>.</li> |
| </ul> |
| <p>By default, the following paths and files are ignored, so there's no |
| need to add them to <code>.npmignore</code> explicitly:</p> |
| <ul> |
| <li><code>.*.swp</code></li> |
| <li><code>._*</code></li> |
| <li><code>.DS_Store</code></li> |
| <li><code>.git</code></li> |
| <li><code>.gitignore</code></li> |
| <li><code>.hg</code></li> |
| <li><code>.npmignore</code></li> |
| <li><code>.npmrc</code></li> |
| <li><code>.lock-wscript</code></li> |
| <li><code>.svn</code></li> |
| <li><code>.wafpickle-*</code></li> |
| <li><code>config.gypi</code></li> |
| <li><code>CVS</code></li> |
| <li><code>npm-debug.log</code></li> |
| </ul> |
| <p>Additionally, everything in <code>node_modules</code> is ignored, except for |
| bundled dependencies. npm automatically handles this for you, so don't |
| bother adding <code>node_modules</code> to <code>.npmignore</code>.</p> |
| <p>The following paths and files are never ignored, so adding them to |
| <code>.npmignore</code> is pointless:</p> |
| <ul> |
| <li><code>package.json</code></li> |
| <li><code>README</code> (and its variants)</li> |
| <li><code>CHANGELOG</code> (and its variants)</li> |
| <li><code>LICENSE</code> / <code>LICENCE</code></li> |
| </ul> |
| <p>If, given the structure of your project, you find <code>.npmignore</code> to be a |
| maintenance headache, you might instead try populating the <code>files</code> |
| property of <code>package.json</code>, which is an array of file or directory names |
| that should be included in your package. Sometimes manually picking |
| which items to allow is easier to manage than building a block list.</p> |
| <h4 id="testing-whether-your-npmignore-or-files-config-works">Testing whether your <code>.npmignore</code> or <code>files</code> config works</h4> |
| <p>If you want to double check that your package will include only the files |
| you intend it to when published, you can run the <code>npm pack</code> command locally |
| which will generate a tarball in the working directory, the same way it |
| does for publishing.</p> |
| <h3 id="link-packages">Link Packages</h3> |
| <p><code>npm link</code> is designed to install a development package and see the |
| changes in real time without having to keep re-installing it. (You do |
| need to either re-link or <code>npm rebuild -g</code> to update compiled packages, |
| of course.)</p> |
| <p>More info at <a href="../commands/npm-link.html"><code>npm link</code></a>.</p> |
| <h3 id="before-publishing-make-sure-your-package-installs-and-works">Before Publishing: Make Sure Your Package Installs and Works</h3> |
| <p><strong>This is important.</strong></p> |
| <p>If you can not install it locally, you'll have |
| problems trying to publish it. Or, worse yet, you'll be able to |
| publish it, but you'll be publishing a broken or pointless package. |
| So don't do that.</p> |
| <p>In the root of your package, do this:</p> |
| <pre><code class="language-bash">npm install . -g |
| </code></pre> |
| <p>That'll show you that it's working. If you'd rather just create a symlink |
| package that points to your working directory, then do this:</p> |
| <pre><code class="language-bash">npm link |
| </code></pre> |
| <p>Use <code>npm ls -g</code> to see if it's there.</p> |
| <p>To test a local install, go into some other folder, and then do:</p> |
| <pre><code class="language-bash">cd ../some-other-folder |
| npm install ../my-package |
| </code></pre> |
| <p>to install it locally into the node_modules folder in that other place.</p> |
| <p>Then go into the node-repl, and try using require("my-thing") to |
| bring in your module's main module.</p> |
| <h3 id="create-a-user-account">Create a User Account</h3> |
| <p>Create a user with the adduser command. It works like this:</p> |
| <pre><code class="language-bash">npm adduser |
| </code></pre> |
| <p>and then follow the prompts.</p> |
| <p>This is documented better in <a href="../commands/npm-adduser.html">npm adduser</a>.</p> |
| <h3 id="publish-your-package">Publish your Package</h3> |
| <p>This part's easy. In the root of your folder, do this:</p> |
| <pre><code class="language-bash">npm publish |
| </code></pre> |
| <p>You can give publish a url to a tarball, or a filename of a tarball, |
| or a path to a folder.</p> |
| <p>Note that pretty much <strong>everything in that folder will be exposed</strong> |
| by default. So, if you have secret stuff in there, use a |
| <code>.npmignore</code> file to list out the globs to ignore, or publish |
| from a fresh checkout.</p> |
| <h3 id="brag-about-it">Brag about it</h3> |
| <p>Send emails, write blogs, blab in IRC.</p> |
| <p>Tell the world how easy it is to install your program!</p> |
| <h3 id="see-also">See also</h3> |
| <ul> |
| <li><a href="../commands/npm.html">npm</a></li> |
| <li><a href="../commands/npm-init.html">npm init</a></li> |
| <li><a href="../configuring-npm/package-json.html">package.json</a></li> |
| <li><a href="../using-npm/scripts.html">npm scripts</a></li> |
| <li><a href="../commands/npm-publish.html">npm publish</a></li> |
| <li><a href="../commands/npm-adduser.html">npm adduser</a></li> |
| <li><a href="../using-npm/registry.html">npm registry</a></li> |
| </ul></div> |
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