How to install a private NPM module without my own registry?

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I've taken some shared code and put it in an NPM module, one I don't want to upload to the central registry. The question is, how do I install it from other projects?

The obvious way is probably to set up my own NPM registry, but according to the documentation, that involves a lot of hassle.

Can I just install an NPM module that sits on the local filesystem, or perhaps even from git?

npm install --from-git git@server:project

Phlyctena answered 30/4, 2012 at 15:33 Comment(0)

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299

cd somedir
npm install .

or

npm install path/to/somedir

somedir must contain the package.json inside it.

It knows about git too:

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

Doloroso answered 30/4, 2012 at 18:44 Comment(11)

The path/to/somedir solution kind of works, but then it's kind of awful because all of the require statements then have to include that relative or absolute path. Please correct me if I'm doing something wrong... – Casuist 25/10, 2012 at 3:40

@Luke yes, you're wrong. After npm install all the files are copied to your project directory. So the paths in the require statements will be relative only to your project directory. – Doloroso 25/10, 2012 at 7:52

I'm confused by the top part and the only reason I haven't tested this myself is that I'm still learning and don't have a private module to work on. Anyway, by changing your directory to where the module is and then calling install wouldn't that just install there and not for the project you want to use it for? – Flo 28/1, 2013 at 4:48

@AdamBeck yes, that's right. That command is usefull for module developers who may want to do a quick test of the module to see if it works, or when you download a module and just want a quick Hello World. If you want to include it in your project you should definitely have a separate folder. – Doloroso 28/1, 2013 at 9:30

Side note: (a) when using git repos, you can specify a branch/commit/tag by adding a #<ref> to the end of the git url, eg git://github.com/visionmedia/express.git#v0.0.1; (b) To be safe add "private": true to the package.json of your private repos. This will make sure npm will never let you accidentally publish your secret sauce to the official npm registry. (according to debuggable.com/posts/…) – Predestinate 26/3, 2013 at 19:32

FYI if you are serving your git up via http you'll need to npm i git+http://all/the/things.git even though git clone http://all/the/things.git works just fine – Primatology 30/5, 2013 at 19:9

But even if path/to/somedir/ has a package.json file, it copies the directory itself into {$PWD}/node_modules. So now there is {$PWD}/dependency/package.json. and ${PWD}/node_modules/dependency which is less than elegant. – Confocal 22/5, 2015 at 20:9

For yarn, the protocol is required. That is to say the prefix git+ssh:// is required. – Averse 29/8, 2017 at 3:59

@Doloroso Is it necessary to do a full npm purge of any existing package with the same name? Usually before I start experimenting with a fork of an NPM package, I already have it installed either globally or locally in my Node.js package. – Orjonikidze 9/6, 2018 at 13:48

You can actually add "my-module-name": "file:../mymodule", to your dependencies (assuming that mymodule has a package.json file where it's indeed named my-module-name), run npm install, and then in your source files you can just reference your module by name, e.g. import {util} from 'my-module-name';. – Varico 13/9, 2018 at 9:20

how to do something like npm install git://home/michael/some.git? that is, the repo is on the local file system, "git://" seems to insist on using the network, and without "git://" it fails because there's no package.json (due to it being a git repo) – Snuggery 27/8, 2019 at 16:38

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In the package.json file inside the private npm modules, you should add:

"private": true

Then to reference the private module in another module, use this in your package.json:

{
    "name": "myapp",
    "dependencies": {
       "private-repo": "git+ssh://[email protected]:myaccount/myprivate.git#v1.0.0",
    }
}

Toplofty answered 30/4, 2012 at 23:9 Comment(14)

This is the real correct answer if you want your package.json to maintain the private repo dependency list, which is a Good Thing(tm) that you should be doing. – Busse 24/4, 2013 at 22:44

Thanks - this is perfect. One problem - it works if I don't include the # version at the end, but if I do, I get an error like this: "Error: Command failed: fatal: ambiguous argument 'v0.0.1': unknown revision or path not in the working tree." I can't find a solution to this. Do you know what's going on? – Constitute 14/8, 2013 at 17:48

In the example it's referencing a specific tag, but if you don't have one then it'll default to master. (see git-scm.com/book/en/Git-Basics-Tagging) – Toplofty 15/8, 2013 at 0:17

I don't understand how this command line can download code from a private github repo if I am not supllying my credentials! So how can I pass my github credentials? – Cockcrow 9/12, 2013 at 19:57

You can setup the box with deploy keys (see help.github.com/articles/managing-deploy-keys) – Toplofty 10/12, 2013 at 23:49

can this be done without using ssh? I need to install on heroku not only on my local machine – Fugazy 13/2, 2014 at 22:16

Note that the "private": true part isn't necessary, but it will help prevent your private repo from accidentally being published to the public npm registry. – Napper 10/9, 2014 at 18:14

@250R: What is the syntax if I always want to to download latest version of my custom package? – Mella 29/7, 2015 at 4:2

npm looks for several environment variables as well. From the manual in the npm install <git remote url> section, there are options like GIT_ASKPASS and GIT_SSH.An example usage to choose a key other than the default id_rsa: GIT_SSH_COMMAND='ssh -i ~/.ssh/custom_ident' npm install git+ssh://[email protected]:npm/npm.git – Bestialize 19/10, 2015 at 3:32

@Toplofty : Does npm always pull from the master branch if a branch isn't specified in the dependency? What if I have another branch, say develop and I tag the commit there? I know npm will update a specific branch, if written like .../myprivate.git#develop", but what if I want to pull a specific tag from that branch? Because just specifying the tag, like .../myprivate.git#v1.0.1" did not work. I got a fatal: ambiguous argument 'v1.0.1': unknown revision or path not in the working tree. – Raeleneraf 14/1, 2016 at 15:17

Is this possible for private bitbucket git repos? – Ridenour 20/8, 2016 at 0:41

This seems to hard code the location of the repository... is it possible to create a reference such that any user can check it out of their own repository without editing every reference in every package? – Snuggery 12/1, 2017 at 23:10

@Raeleneraf as already said by 250R the default branch is master, when no tag or branch is specified as url fragment. To me it works perfectly either with a branch name or a tag name; are you sure you correctly pushed the tag to origin via git push --tags? (and are you sure you are using the v prefix in your versioning tags?) – Polyadelphous 12/6, 2019 at 13:49

I would like to know, what is the difference in using git repo as a private npm module versus npm private registry hosted ones. what are the key differences ? – Nette 20/1, 2023 at 7:43

D

299

cd somedir
npm install .

or

npm install path/to/somedir

somedir must contain the package.json inside it.

It knows about git too:

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