Is it possible to automatically install the required modules for a node.js script?

Question

Is it possible to automatically download the required modules for a node.js script? I'm wondering if it's possible to generate a list of required modules for a node.js script (like the one below), and install them automatically, instead of installing them manually, one-by-one (using npm).

#!/usr/bin/env node

var DNode = require('dnode');
var sys = require('sys');
var fs = require('fs');
var http = require('http');

var html = fs.readFileSync(__dirname + '/web.html');
var js = require('dnode/web').source();

//the rest of this script is omitted.

Answer 1

Yes, there is a great piece of code called NPM for exactly this: https://npmjs.org/

You specify dependent packages in a package.json file (see the docs for syntax) and you can use npm install . to pull them in all at once, and then require them from your script.

Package.json syntax page: https://docs.npmjs.com/getting-started/using-a-package.json

The first time you install a module, your can provide any number of modules to install, and add the --save argument to automatically add it to your package.json

npm i --save dnode request bluebird

The next time, someone will execute npm i it will automatically install all the modules specified in your package.json