Node.js – Local dependency in package.json

node.jsnpm

I want to do something like this, so npm install also installs the package.json of ../somelocallib or more importantly its dependencies.

"dependencies": {
    "express": "*",
    "../somelocallib": "*"
}

Best Answer

npm >= 2.0.0

This feature was implemented in the version 2.0.0 of npm. Example:

{
  "name": "baz",
  "dependencies": {
    "bar": "file:../foo/bar"
  }
}

Any of the following paths are also valid:

../foo/bar
~/foo/bar
./foo/bar
/foo/bar

The local package will be copied to the prefix (./node-modules).

npm < 2.0.0

Put somelocallib as dependency in your package.json as normal:

"dependencies": {
  "somelocallib": "0.0.x"
}

Then run npm link ../somelocallib and npm will install the version you're working on as a symlink.

app@0.0.1 /private/tmp/app
└── somelocallib@0.0.1 -> /private/tmp/somelocallib

Reference: link(1)

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