Where do we put node modules we install by npm in a Meteor project?

Question

I followed the github meteorirc project's lead and put them in /public/

I installed my node modules via npm from inside /public/ and therefore I have a /public/node_modules/ directory.

I don't think this is the 'proper' or 'standard' place for them because according to the Meteor docs...

Meteor gathers all your JavaScript files, excluding anything under the client and public subdirectories, and loads them into a Node.js server instance inside a fiber

The code to load is in the server dir and server js files and looks like this.

var require = __meteor_bootstrap__.require;

var path = require("path");
var fs = require('fs');
var base = path.resolve('.');
if (base == '/'){
  base = path.dirname(global.require.main.filename);   
}

var Twit;
var twitPath = 'node_modules/twit';
var publicTwitPath = path.resolve(base+'/public/'+twitPath);
var staticTwitPath = path.resolve(base+'/static/'+twitPath);
if (path.existsSync(publicTwitPath)){
  Twit = require(publicTwitPath);
}
else if (path.existsSync(staticTwitPath)){
  Twit = require(staticTwitPath);
}
else{
  console.log('WARNING Twit not loaded. Node_modules not found');
}

Based on the docs this is not standard and I don't believe I should be doing it this way. Yet, it works both on my dev platform and in production at deploy meteor.com.

Where in the directory structure of the project should node modules be installed so that they work locally and upon deployment at meteor.com or elsewhere?

Answer 1

cd /usr/local/meteor/lib/ && npm install <module>

Answer 2

To use Npm modules in Meteor its adding the npm module in.

First you need to add a npm package adapter such as meteorhacks:npm

meteor add meteorhacks:npm

Then start your meteor app by running meteor, you will notice a new packages.json file in your project

Add in modules like this (you need to explicitly define a version)

{
    "request" : "2.53.0"
}

Then you can use the npm modules in your meteor app, use Meteor.npmRequire instead of require

var request = Meteor.npmRequire("request")