如何自动测试用户版本的npm软件包，而不是在持续集成上运行开发版本？

Question

It happens occasionally that the development version of a module works in my development workspace and passes on Travis-CI but after publishing to npm it turns-out the end-user package is broken.

For example if you use a sub module that should be in dependencies but had it in devDependencies then CI will pass (but there are plenty other possible breakages).

How do you automate testing this? Do you use external rigging? Is there a secret module? Do you have a user acceptance test suite?

I use Github with Travis-CI but the standard setup uses the development install.

Answer 1

Once upon a time I discovered that npm would let me publish packages that are uninstallable. So I've added a target to my Gruntfile that does this:

1. Issue npm pack to create a package from my source.

2. Into a directory created (automatically by my Gruntfile ) just for testing install the new package using npm install <path to the package created in the previous step> .

I have a target for publishing a new version that will publish only if the steps above are successful.

The steps above would not catch the dependency problem you mentioned in the question but they could easily be extended to catch it. To do this, I'd add one or more tests that cause the package installed in step 2 above to call require with all that it depends on.

Answer 2

I would suggest to set up your own CI server that does essentially one thing, npm install package ; cd node_modules/package ; npm test npm install package ; cd node_modules/package ; npm test npm install package ; cd node_modules/package ; npm test . This would ensure that your package is installable at least on your server.

I heard that Jenkins is good for this (at least, that's what node.js core team seems to be using), but don't have any first hand experience yet. We're just planning to set in up in a couple of weeks.

Also, having some external module that depends on you and testing it helps a bit. :)