Possible to include a command-line in a Node module without global install?

Question

I have a small Node module that includes a command line script in the bin directory.

    "bin": {
        "generate": "./bin/generate.js"
    }

The generate.js script is properly executable.

This all works fine if I run npm install -g. But I'd prefer not to globally install and only have the command generate work from inside the module folder. If I run npm install from the module folder, it does correctly install all of the dependencies in a node_modules subdirectory. But then generate from the command like gives me "No such file or directory."

Thx.

Answer 1

I never install node modules using -g. My solution for your problem is to add this to my $PATH

# add this to ~/.bashrc, ~/.zshrc, or ~/.profile, etc
export PATH="./node_modules/.bin:$PATH"

Now, so long as your in the root of your module, you can access any binaries that have been installed as modules.

---

As an example, less is commonly installed with

npm install -g less

However, if you have your PATH modified as described above, you could something like this

cd my_node_module
npm install --save less
lessc less/style.less css/style.css

Without the PATH modification, you would've seen

command not found: lessc

---

If you don't feel like altering your PATH, you can access the binary directly

cd my_node_module
npm install --save lessc
./node_modules/.bin/lessc a.less a.css

---

Yay, no more npm install -g ...