Meteor - How to Use a Package in Dev or Production Only

Question

In Meteor, is there a way to specify a package to be used in the development environment only, or the production environment only? When I add packages via astmospherejs.com, they all get lumped into the .meteor/packages file sorted chronologically by time added. Essentially, I'm looking for what would be a ruby Gemfile, where you can specify different environments. Thanks!

Answer 1

Here's a little trick I've been using to run a package in development only:

1. from your app root, create a blank package (or add to your PACKAGE_DIRS directory): meteor create --package my-package-manager

2. In package.js:

   Package.on_use(function(api) {
     // production only
     if (process.env.IS_PRODUCTION) {
       api.use('some:package');
     }
     // dev only
     if (process.env.IS_DEVELOPMENT) {
       api.use('devonly:package');
     }
   });
   

3. On dev environment: echo "export IS_DEVELOPMENT=true" >> ~/.bash_profile (or ~/.zshrc in my case)

4. Then obviously do the same thing for IS_PRODUCTION on whatever you use for production server. on heroku for example: heroku config:set IS_PRODUCTION=true

I'm using this for a dev-only package, haven't tried it with production-only but it should work.

Answer 2

From meteor version 1.3.2, you can simply put the flag prodOnly or debugOnly.

More info here