Externally-located 'npm run' scripts in package.json on Windows?

Question

As we know, you can run arbitrary commands using npm run by adding a scripts hash to your package.json:

"scripts": {
    "build-js": "browserify browser/main.js | uglifyjs -mc > static/bundle.js"
}

Which would then be run with npm run build-js.

You can also move these commands out into separate scripts, such as bash scripts, as such:

"scripts": {
    "build-js": "bin/build.sh"
}

This obviously doesn't natively work on Windows, due to Windows not being capable of running bash scripts. You can install bash ports and such, but I'd love to be able to use some sort of native Windows construct for doing the same thing.

I've tried some other approaches, including using child_process.exec to run arbitrary commands from within a standard node script file:

"scripts": {
    "build-js": "node bin/build.js"
}

But I've noticed child_process chokes on relatively large/intensive operations, making it implausible to use.

Is there a Windows-specific (or even better, cross-platform) way to move these package.json npm run scripts out into separate files? Preferably one that doesn't require bash?

Answer 1

From a helpful article on using NPM as a build tool, why not simply use a JavaScript file?

Here's the example given in the article (slightly modified for clarity):

// scripts/favicon.js

var favicons = require('favicons');  
var path = require('path');  

favicons({  
  source: path.resolve('../assets/images/logo.png'),
  dest: path.resolve('../dist/'),
});


// package.json

"scripts": {
  "build-favicon": "node scripts/favicon.js",
},
"devDependencies": {
  "favicons": "latest",
}

Which would be run in the terminal with the command npm run build-favicon

Answer 2

Using node to run a JS file is an option, but if you need to run system commands on both Windows and *NIX, that would make the script messy. For cross-platform scripts, try out the shelljs package.

Answer 3

Using the make command is also a nice option.

Makefile

build-js:
    browserify browser/main.js | uglifyjs -mc > static/bundle.js

package.json

"scripts": {
    "build-js": "make build-js",
}

You can find more about make here.