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All the benefits of npm scripts without the cost of a bloated package.json and limits of json
npsis short fornpm-package-scripts
Even though npm scripts have a ton of advantages (learn more), it can grow into an
unmaintainable mess in your package.json file. Part of the problem is we're configuring scripts in json
which has fundamental issues (like no comments).
nps is a package that solves this problem by allowing you to move your scripts to a package-scripts.js file. Because
this file is a JavaScript file, you can do a lot more with your project scripts. Here's an example of a
package-scripts.js file:
const npsUtils = require("nps-utils"); // not required, but handy!
module.exports = {
scripts: {
default: "node index.js",
lint: "eslint .",
test: {
// learn more about Jest here: https://facebook.github.io/jest
default: "jest",
watch: {
script: "jest --watch",
description: "run in the amazingly intelligent Jest watch mode"
}
},
build: {
// learn more about Webpack here: https://webpack.js.org/
default: "webpack",
prod: "webpack -p"
},
// learn more about npsUtils here: https://npm.im/nps-utils
validate: npsUtils.concurrent.nps("lint", "test", "build")
}
};Or in case you prefer YAML, here's an example of how that would look in a package-scripts.yml file:
scripts:
default: node index.js
lint: eslint .
test:
# learn more about Jest here: https://kcd.im/egghead-jest
default: jest
watch:
script: jest --watch
description: run in the amazingly intelligent Jest watch mode
build:
default: webpack
prod: webpack -p
validate: concurrent "nps lint" "nps test" "nps build"To use nps, it's recommended that you either install it globally (npm i -g nps) or add ./node_modules/bin to your
$PATH (be careful that you know what you're doing when doing this, find out how here).
Then you can run:
nps helpWhich will output:
Usage: nps [options] <script>...
Commands:
init automatically migrate from npm scripts to nps
completion generate bash completion script
Options:
--config, -c Config file to use (defaults to nearest package-scripts.yml
or package-scripts.js)
[default: "<path-to-your-project>/package-scripts.js"]
--silent, -s Silent nps output [boolean] [default: false]
--log-level, -l The log level to use
[choices: "error", "warn", "info", "debug"] [default: "info"]
--require, -r Module to preload
--prefix, -p Prefix for each <script> name
-h, --help Show help [boolean]
-v, --version Show version number [boolean]
--help-style, -y Style of help to use
[choices: "all", "scripts", "basic"] [default: "all"]
Examples:
nps.js test build Runs the `test` script then the
`build` script
nps.js "test --cover" "build --prod" Runs the `test` script and forwards
the "--cover" flag then the `build`
script and forwards the "--prod"
flag
nps.js --prefix=test unit functional Runs the `test.unit` script then
the `test.functional` script
Available scripts (camel or kebab case accepted)
lint - eslint .
test - jest
test.watch - run in the amazingly intelligent Jest watch mode - jest --watch
build - webpack
build.prod - webpack -p
validate - concurrent "nps lint" "nps test" "nps build"You can also use the help command with a script name
nps help test.watchWhich will output the details of the script test.watch:
test.watch - run in the amazingly intelligent Jest watch mode - jest --watchNow, to run a script, you can run:
nps lint
nps test.watch
# etc.But the fun doesn't end there! You can use a prefix:
nps b # will run the build script
nps help b # will display help for the build scriptAnd these prefixes can go as deep as you like!
nps b.p # will run the production build scriptCool stuff right? And there's more on the roadmap.
Also check out the examples. You'll find some good stuff in there (including how to deal with windows and other cross-platform issues).
Note: If you don't like installing things globally and don't want to muck with your $PATH (or don't want to
require that your co-workers or project contributors to do so), then you can add a single script to your package.json.
We recommend that you use the start script because it requires less typing:
package.json
{
"scripts": {
"start": "nps"
}
}You don't have to use the start script if you don't want. Note that if you're writing a node application, you're
likely using start for starting your server. In that case, you can create a default script which will be run
when nps is run without arguments (so effectively it'll work just the same). But if you'd prefer, you can use whatever
you wish. For example you could easily create a nps script and do: npm run nps b.
This module is distributed via npm which is bundled with node and should
be installed as one of your project's devDependencies:
npm install --save-dev nps
You can install this module globally also (this is recommended):
npm install --global nps
From here you can use nps on the command line via one of the installed aliases: nps or nps.
If you do this, you may also be interested in installing the shell autocompletion script. See more about this below.
If you're already using npm scripts, you can get up and going really quickly with the init command:
./node_modules/.bin/nps init
or
./node_modules/.bin/nps init --type yml
This will use your package.json scripts to generate a package-scripts.js (respectively a package-scripts.yml)
file and update your scripts to utilize the nps binary.
If you have a help script, then your help script will be run. Otherwise, this will output the help.
Note: you can do this with
nps --help, but if you're using thestartscript in yourpackage.jsonthis allows you to runnpm start helprather thannpm start -- --help
As indicated above, this will migrate your npm scripts to package-scripts.
nps completion >> <your-bash-profile-file>Normally <your-bash-profile-file> will be ~/.bash_profile, ~/.bashrc, or ~/.zshrc.
Note: you should probably only do this if you have the package installed globally. In that case you should probably also
normally use the nps alias rather than nps because it's easier to type.
Note: for zsh support, you must enable zsh's bash completion script compatibility mode.
Will print out the help you see above (the available scripts are colored 🌈 and come from the config specified/default config).
By default, nps will log out to the console before running the command. You can add -s to your command to silence
this.
By default, the script's command text will log out to the console before running the command. You can add --no-scripts to prevent this.
Use a different config
nps -c ./other/package-scripts.js lint
Normally, nps will look for a package-scripts.js file and load that to get the scripts. Generally you'll want to
have this at the root of your project (next to the package.json). But by specifying -c or --config, nps will
use that file instead.
Specify the log level to use
You can specify a module which will be loaded before the config file is loaded. This allows you to preload for example babel-register so you can use all babel presets you like.
To run a script, you simply provide the name of the script like so:
nps coverAnd you can run multiple scripts in series by simply adding more space-separated arguments.
nps cover check-coverageAnd you can pass arguments to scripts by putting the scripts in quotes:
nps "test --cover" check-coverageBy default, nps will dump a very long help documentation to the screen based on your package-scripts.js file. You can modify this output with one of three help-style options:
all gives you the normal default output:
nps help "--help-style all"scripts will give you only the help information built from your package-scripts.js file
nps help "--help-style scripts"basic will give you only the name and description of the scripts from your package-scripts.js file
nps help "--help-style basic"Some of the options accepted by CLI can also be provided in a .npsrc or .npsrc.json JSON configuration file.
It will search upwards starting in the directory the nps command was invoked from.
The accepted options are:
requireconfig
The other options can be provided in the specified configuration file (or the default package-scripts.js) once it is loaded, but these
options need to be provided in order to find and parse the configuration file.
This is can be useful when you have a reqular set of options you need to pass to nps, especially when using series.nps() or concurrent.nps() from nps-utils.
{
"require": "ts-node/register/transpile-only",
"config": "package-scripts.ts"
}That's all for the CLI.
Remember, this file is JavaScript, so you can write functions to make things more simple! See other/EXAMPLES.md for examples of cool things you can do with this.
nps expects to your package-scripts.js file to module.exports an object with the following properties:
This can be an object or a function that returns an object. See the annotated example below for what this object can look like (and different ways to run them):
module.exports = {
scripts: {
default: 'echo "This runs on `nps`"', // nps
// you can assign a script property to a string
simple: 'echo "this is easy"', // nps simple
// you can specify whether some scripts should be excluded from the help list
hidden: {
script: "debugging script",
hiddenFromHelp: true
},
test: {
default: {
script: "jest", // nps test
description: "Run tests with jest"
// your scripts will be run with node_modules/.bin in the PATH, so you can use locally installed packages.
// this is done in a cross-platform way, so your scripts will work on Mac and Windows :)
// NOTE: if you need to set environment variables, I recommend you check out the cross-env package, which works
// great with nps
},
otherStuff: {
// this one can be executed two different ways:
// 1. nps test.otherStuff
// 2. nps test.other-stuff
script: 'echo "testing other things"',
description: "this is a handy description"
}
},
// this one can be executed a few different ways:
// 1. nps k
// 2. nps kebab-case
// 3. nps kebabCase
"kebab-case": 'echo "kebab-case"',
series: "nps simple,test,kebabCase" // runs these other scripts in series
}
};nps k # runs nps kebab-caseThis object is used to configure nps with the following options:
Setting this to true will prevent nps from outputting anything for your script (normally you'll get simple output
indicating the command that's being executed). This effectively sets the logLevel to disable.
This sets the logLevel of nps.
By setting LOG_LEVEL environment variable you can control the log level for nps
Log levels available:
error- errors onlywarn- errors and warnings onlyinfo- info, errors, and warnings (default)
Congratulations your repo is nps-friendly. Time to flaunt it! Add the nps-friendly badge to your README using the following markdown:
[](https://github.com/sezna/nps)Your badge will look like this:
It may also make sense to change your README.md or CONTRIBUTING.md to include or link to the nps project so that your new contributors may learn more about installing and using nps.
Have you looked at the examples in other/EXAMPLES.md?
Just to be clear: You do not have to use the start script. You can use whatever you like. But I recommend using
the start. npm scripts are generally run with npm run <script-name>. There are some exceptions to
this. For example:
npm run test===npm test===npm tnpm run start===npm start
So, while you could use a script called script and run npm run script build, I just think it reads more clearly to
just use the start script and run npm start build. It's also nice that it's fewer things to type. You could also use
the test script and then type even less: npm t build, but thats just... odd.
Note, often servers are configured to run npm start by default to start the server. To allow for this case, you can
provide a default script at the root of your scripts which will be run when npm start is run without any arguments.
Effectively this will allow you to have a script run when npm start is executed.
This was inspired by a tweet by @sindresorhus.
Big thank you to @tmpvar for giving up the name nps! The original nps is now
called npmsearch-cli.
nps-utils- a collection of utilities to make cross-platform scripts and many other patterns (like running concurrent/parallel scripts)nps-i- interactive mode for nps
- scripty has a solution for this problem as well. The reason I didn't go with that though is you still need a line for every script (one of the pains I'm trying to solve) and a each script requires its own file (one of the benefits of npm scripts I wanted to keep).
- nabs is a compiler that turns a nicely structured YAML file into script entries in your package.json
This project is p-s! It was just renamed during a major version bump. There were a few breaking changes for this to happen and those are documented on the releases page.
Thanks goes to these people (emoji key):
This project follows the all-contributors specification. Contributions of any kind welcome!
MIT