CODEWITHSUNDEEP
node.jsnpm
Eric Bock
Eric Bock

Reputation: 1782

Exclude test code in npm package?

The devDependencies section of npm's package.json documentation says to list your test dependencies there so that users of your package don't have to pull down extra dependencies. Would it make sense to also add my test directory to .npmignore in that case?

Upvotes: 52

Views: 40097

Answers (3)

tcobbs
tcobbs

Reputation: 419

One thing that I haven't been able to find explicitly mentioned anywhere is the fact that the "files" entry in package.json supports using a ! prefix on an entry. So, for example, I have a "files" entry that looks like this:

{
  "files": [
    "lib/**/*",
    "!lib/**/*.map"
  ],
}

I do that because my lib directory includes .map files that I don't want to include in the package, and this includes everything but the *.map files.

Upvotes: 21

alessioalex
alessioalex

Reputation: 63663

Yes that's what most people do, here are some npmignore files for popular Node.js modules:

https://github.com/socketio/socket.io/blob/ab46351a8446516fb4eea3b8333f7c0f18afaac5/.npmignore

Other people allowlist what they want published in their package.json files setting:

https://github.com/senchalabs/connect/blob/master/package.json
https://github.com/strongloop/express/blob/master/package.json

Upvotes: 51

a.barbieri
a.barbieri

Reputation: 2596

Another approach is to use a lib folder and store everything in there. Then you can configure your package.json to consider only that folder.

In order to work you need also to move your main file inside lib and specify it in the package.json. See example below:

{
  "name": "your-package",
  "main": "./lib/index.js",
  "files": [
    "/lib"
  ]
}

More info are available on this nice article

Upvotes: 5

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