NPM: module installation for a command line node tool?

Question

I have a command line tool written in node. I'd like to:

Have the app be able to load its dependencies and work. Currently, after npm install -g that module is still not available. Things didn't used to work this way.
Not have to run npm link on every folder, as I have read in the NPM 1.0 docs. The above docs also talks about $PATH, which seems unrelated to the topic as I care about node modules, not binaries.

How can/should a node command line tool handle its dependencies so that the command line tool can run from any directory?

Salman · Accepted Answer

You can add following in the main file of your node.js app, assuming your file name is node-binary.js.

#! /usr/bin/env node

// your app code
console.log('TEST node binary');

And, in package.json file you need to specify which is the entry point of your app

...
"preferGlobal": "true",
"bin": {
    "node-binary": "node-binary.js"
},
...

and run the command npm link in the app directory. You should now be able to use node-binary command from any directory.

Hope that helps... :)

Answers (1)