CODEWITHSUNDEEP
githubnpmnpm-installnode-modules
guy mograbi
guy mograbi

Reputation: 28688

How to install an npm package from GitHub directly

Trying to install modules from GitHub results in this error:

ENOENT error on package.json.

Easily reproduced using express:

npm install https://github.com/visionmedia/express throws error.

npm install express works.

Why can't I install from GitHub?

Here is the console output:

npm http GET https://github.com/visionmedia/express.git
npm http 200 https://github.com/visionmedia/express.git
npm ERR! not a package /home/guym/tmp/npm-32312/1373176518024-0.6586997057311237/tmp.tgz
npm ERR! Error: ENOENT, open '/home/guym/tmp/npm-32312/1373176518024-0.6586997057311237/package/package.json'
npm ERR! If you need help, you may report this log at:
npm ERR!     <http://github.com/isaacs/npm/issues>
npm ERR! or email it to:
npm ERR!     <[email protected]>

npm ERR! System Linux 3.8.0-23-generic
npm ERR! command "/usr/bin/node" "/usr/bin/npm" "install" "https://github.com/visionmedia/express.git"
npm ERR! cwd /home/guym/dev_env/projects_GIT/proj/somename
npm ERR! node -v v0.10.10
npm ERR! npm -v 1.2.25
npm ERR! path /home/guym/tmp/npm-32312/1373176518024-0.6586997057311237/package/package.json
npm ERR! code ENOENT
npm ERR! errno 34
npm ERR!
npm ERR! Additional logging details can be found in:
npm ERR!     /home/guym/dev_env/projects_GIT/proj/somename/npm-debug.log
npm ERR! not ok code 0

Upvotes: 1245

Views: 887694

Answers (24)

purga
purga

Reputation: 453

Can also update your packages.json as:

"dependencies": {
    ...
    "express": "github:visionmedia/express",
    ...
}

Then execute npm update or pnpm update if you have pnpm installed.

Upvotes: 1

Siyavash Hamdi
Siyavash Hamdi

Reputation: 3087

Consider one final resolution that could prove beneficial.

If you encounter difficulties, it's possible that an incorrect package URL is present in the package.json under dependencies or devDependencies.

Remove any such entries and attempt the operation again. For an improved troubleshooting experience, temporarily remove both dependencies and devDependencies and then retry:

npm i git+https://github.com/visionmedia/express.git

Upvotes: 2

Guillem Puche
Guillem Puche

Reputation: 1414

Yarn 2 requires the package name along with the Github repository. Read the documentation of Yarn's CLI.

Example: yarn add <package_name>[email protected]:<owner_name>/<package_name>.git

Upvotes: 1

Peter Lyons
Peter Lyons

Reputation: 146114

Because https://github.com/visionmedia/express is the URL of a web page and not an npm module. Use this flavor: git+{url}.git

git+https://github.com/visionmedia/express.git

or this flavor if you need SSH:

git+ssh://[email protected]/visionmedia/express.git

or if you need to install a GitHub Enterprise repository:

git+https://<github enterprise url>/<org>/<repo>.git#<branch>

Upvotes: 1584

JFSIII
JFSIII

Reputation: 8687

To install from GitHub, you can also do

npm install visionmedia/express

Or

npm install visionmedia/express#branch

There is also support for installing directly from a Gist, Bitbucket, GitLab, and a number of other specialized formats. Look at the npm install documentation for them all.

Upvotes: 853

chinmay Bhadang
chinmay Bhadang

Reputation: 53

No need to do much; this helped me:

Yarn add <git_name>:<github_name>/<Repository_name>.git

Example:

yarn add [email protected]:myGitHub/dynamic-checkbox-input.git

And if you want to add some specific commit or branch name then add #.

Example:

yarn add [email protected]:myGitHub/dynamic-checkbox-input.git#master

Example:

yarn add [email protected]:myGitHub/dynamic-checkbox-input.git#c978U57

Upvotes: 4

sultanmyrza
sultanmyrza

Reputation: 5474

Sometimes I need to install from a specific branch or commit. To make things simple I just use https://gitpkg.vercel.app/

enter image description here

Upvotes: 21

Toxnyc
Toxnyc

Reputation: 1350

The only command that worked for me was npm i MY_PACKAGE_NAME:MY_REPOSITORY#BRANCH_NAME

Upvotes: 2

Siddharth Murugan
Siddharth Murugan

Reputation: 153

Below piece of code worked for me to install from github repository:

npm install git+ssh://<your_repository_ssh_clone_link>#<branch_name_if_any>

You can get ssh clone link as below:

ssh clone screenshot

So for above screenshot repository, you may need to import as below,

npm install git+ssh://[email protected]:Siddhu2/calculator-chatbot.git#master

where master is my branch and it is optional since I have only one branch.

Upvotes: 4

Omar Omeiri
Omar Omeiri

Reputation: 1833

This works for me and it is less typing.

npm i github:<UserName>/<RepoName>

package.json

{
    "dependencies": {
        "name": "github:<UserName>/<RepoName>"
    }
}

Upvotes: 34

Bruce Lee
Bruce Lee

Reputation: 4441

You can directly install a GitHub repository by the npm install command, like this:

npm install https://github.com/futurechallenger/npm_git_install.git --save

NOTE: In the repository which will be installed by npm command:

  1. maybe you have to have a dist folder in you repository, according to Dan Dascalescu's comment.
  2. You definitely have to have a package.json in your repository! Which I forget add.

Upvotes: 11

Rip3rs
Rip3rs

Reputation: 1540

If you get something like this:

npm ERR! enoent undefined ls-remote -h -t https://github.com/some_repo/repo.git

Make sure you update to the latest npm and that you have permissions as well.

Upvotes: 2

Khurshid Ansari
Khurshid Ansari

Reputation: 5095

Simple:

npm install *GithubUrl*.git --save

Example:

npm install https://github.com/visionmedia/express.git --save

Upvotes: 8

nextgentech
nextgentech

Reputation: 3728

The methods are covered pretty well now in npm's install documentation as well as the numerous other answers here.

npm install git+ssh://[email protected]:<githubname>/<githubrepo.git[#<commit-ish>]
npm install git+ssh://[email protected]:<githubname>/<githubrepo.git>[#semver:^x.x]
npm install git+https://[email protected]/<githubname>/<githubrepo.git>
npm install git://github.com/<githubname>/<githubrepo.git>
npm install github:<githubname>/<githubrepo>[#<commit-ish>]

However, something notable that has changed recently is npm adding the prepare script to replace the prepublish script. This fixes a long-standing problem where modules installed via Git did not run the prepublish script and thus did not complete the build steps that occur when a module is published to the npm registry. See Run prepublish for Git URL packages #3055.

Of course, the module authors will need to update their package.json file to use the new prepare directive for this to start working.

Upvotes: 86

Sagiv Ofek
Sagiv Ofek

Reputation: 25270

You can do:

npm install git://github.com/foo/bar.git

Or in package.json:

"dependencies": {
  "bar": "git://github.com/foo/bar.git"
}

Upvotes: 26

Fergie
Fergie

Reputation: 6245

As of September 2016, installing from vanilla HTTPS GitHub URLs now works:

npm install https://github.com/fergiemcdowall/search-index.git

You can't do this for all modules because you are reading from a source control system, which may well contain invalid/uncompiled/buggy code. So to be clear (although it should go without saying): given that the code in the repository is in an npm-usable state, you can now quite happily install directly from GitHub.

In October 2019, we are now living through "peak TypeScript/React/Babel", and therefore JavaScript compilation has become quite common. If you need to take compilation into account, look into prepare. That said, NPM modules do not need to be compiled, and it is wise to assume that compilation is not the default, especially for older node modules (and possibly also for very new, bleeding-edge "ESNext"-y ones).

Upvotes: 85

Rahil Lakhani
Rahil Lakhani

Reputation: 408

Try this command:

 npm install github:[Organisation]/[Repository]#[master/BranchName] -g

This command worked for me:

 npm install github:BlessCSS/bless#3.x -g

Upvotes: -4

Colin D
Colin D

Reputation: 3109

The current top answer by Peter Lyons is not relevant with recent NPM versions. For example, using the same command that was criticized in this answer is now fine.

npm install https://github.com/visionmedia/express

If you have continued problems it might be a problem with whatever package you were using.

Upvotes: 50

Amitesh
Amitesh

Reputation: 3067

If Git is not installed, we can try:

npm install --save https://github.com/Amitesh/gulp-rev-all/tarball/master

Upvotes: 225

Zephyr
Zephyr

Reputation: 2402

I tried npm install git+https://github.com/visionmedia/express but that took way too long and I wasn't sure that would work.

What did work for me was - yarn add git+https://github.com/visionmedia/express.

Upvotes: 2

ishandutta2007
ishandutta2007

Reputation: 18284

The general form of the syntax is

<protocol>://[<user>[:<password>]@]<hostname>[:<port>][:][/]<path>[#<commit-ish> | #semver:<semver>]

which means for your case it will be

npm install git+ssh://[email protected]/visionmedia/express.git

From npmjs docs:

npm install :

Installs the package from the hosted git provider, cloning it with git. For a full git remote url, only that URL will be attempted.

<protocol>://[<user>[:<password>]@]<hostname>[:<port>][:][/]<path>[#<commit-ish>

| #semver:] is one of git, git+ssh, git+http, git+https, or git+file.

If # is provided, it will be used to clone exactly that commit. If the commit-ish has the format #semver:, can be any valid semver range or exact version, and npm will look for any tags or refs matching that range in the remote repository, much as it would for a registry dependency. If neither # or

semver: is specified, then master is used.

If the repository makes use of submodules, those submodules will be cloned as well.

If the package being installed contains a prepare script, its dependencies and devDependencies will be installed, and the prepare script will be run, before the package is packaged and installed.

The following git environment variables are recognized by npm and will be added to the environment when running git:

  • GIT_ASKPASS
  • GIT_EXEC_PATH
  • GIT_PROXY_COMMAND
  • GIT_SSH
  • GIT_SSH_COMMAND
  • GIT_SSL_CAINFO GIT_SSL_NO_VERIFY

See the git man page for details.

Examples:

npm install git+ssh://[email protected]:npm/npm.git#v1.0.27
npm install git+ssh://[email protected]:npm/npm#semver:^5.0
npm install git+https://[email protected]/npm/npm.git
npm install git://github.com/npm/npm.git#v1.0.27
GIT_SSH_COMMAND='ssh -i ~/.ssh/custom_ident' npm install git+ssh://[email protected]:npm/npm.git npm install

Upvotes: 29

Tyler Liu
Tyler Liu

Reputation: 20376

Install it directly:

npm install visionmedia/express

Alternatively, you can add "express": "github:visionmedia/express" to the "dependencies" section of package.json file, then run:

npm install

Upvotes: 18

Alex Cory
Alex Cory

Reputation: 11865

You could also do

npm i alex-cory/fasthacks

or

npm i github:alex-cory/fasthacks

Basically:

npm i user_or_org/repo_name

Upvotes: 14

zakelfassi
zakelfassi

Reputation: 2966

There's also npm install https://github.com/{USER}/{REPO}/tarball/{BRANCH} to use a different branch.

Upvotes: 61

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