local-package-publisher

A utility app for publishing your npm packages locally for testing, which works !!

About

You have created this awesome npm package and you want to test it locally, before publishing to NPM repository. What are the options you have?

Well, below are some of the possible options, but each of them has some caveat, and as a result, it found out need for this project.

1. Symbolic Linking :

   At the root directory of your npm package under test, run the command npm link. It would create a symbolic link to the entire folder to the global namespace. So, a folder will be created in the directory where global packages are stored with the name that is same as that of the value of name property in package.json.

   To test/consume this package, at the root of the target project, run npm link [name], where [name] is the value of name property in package.json which is being consumed.

   Cons: Every file in the directory gets linked, which can create problems and can interfere with the build process if the linked package is consumed in another project.

2. Local NPM Repository :

   You can publish the package under test to a local npm repository hosted using these awesome projects like CNPM,Sinopia, Verdaccio, local-npm etc.

   Cons: You will need to change the registry which npm is pointing to by running npm set registry http://localhost:[port].

   For most of us this might not be a feasible option due to several reasons, but if it does then it is indeed an option worth considering.

3. Manual Process :

   You can first run npm pack command at the root directory of the project under test. It will generate a tar file with the name [package-name]-[version].tgz.

   Then, unzip the tar file content to a directory, separate from your project.

   Go, to this new directory where the tar contents have been extracted, and run npm link from the directory root. Rest of the steps are same as option 1.

   Cons: The process is a bit cumbersome and involves a lot of steps.

I have found out the third option i.e. Manual Process to be most elegant, even though it requires more steps since it relies on npm pack and it ensures that the content it packs will be same as that of when it will be actually published to NPM repository.

This project is an effort to automate this manual process.

Installation

npm install --save-dev local-package-publisher

To install the package locally to the project

or

npm install -g local-package-publisher

To install the package globally

Usage

Say, you have created a project with the name my-awesome-new-package

To publish this package, go to root directory of the project and run below command:

local-package-publisher -p

or

local-package-publisher --publish

Once you run this command it will give you below success message.

my-awesome-new-package package published successfully to global

This command will publish the package globally. It will also create a directory .local-pack with a setings.json file in it, in your project. Please do not delete it.

You can safely add below line to .gitignore as well.

.local-pack

Thats it !! Now whenever you do any modification in the project and you want to publish the changes, just run the local-package-publisher -p command again.

Now, to consume this published package, just go the root directory of the project where you want to consume it, and run below command. It needs to be done only once.

npm link my-awesome-new-package

Note: No need to run above command again and again.

Once, you are done and you want to remove the published package from global, run below command in the root directory of my-awesome-new-package project:

local-package-publisher -u

or

local-package-publisher --unpublish

Once you run this command it will give you below message.

my-awesome-new-package package has been removed from global

Credit

local-package-publisher wouldn't be possible without using the modules from the following authors:

• Sindre Sorhus
• Josh Junon
• JP Richardson
• TJ Holowaychuk
• Moxystudio
• Forbes Lindesay
• KARASZI István

License

Licensed under MIT

Copyright (c) 2019-2020 Debashish Pal