如何修改使用TypeScript构建的npm软件包

Question

I want to try and make some changes to a package published in npm? (I've suggest some changes as an issue but I think they are simple enough for me to attempt them).

https://www.npmjs.com/package/bt-presence#contributing--modifying

The author supplies some information on how to modify the package, but not really enough for someone doing it for the first time.

• Where should I clone the GitHub repo to? The folder where the package is installed? I tried it in my home folder and that would not build (unmodified).
• The command npm run build - where is this run from? The root folder of the package where the package.json is?
• Will I need to modify the package.json ?

In general what is the best way to develop something like this for npm? I've worked on packages before but they were simply Javascript.

Answer 1

• If you want to work on the bt-presence package in isolation, you can put the cloned repository anywhere. If you want to use your modified version of bt-presence in combination with an application, my recommended approach is to register bt-presence as a dependency in the application's package.json file with the version set to a relative path to your bt-presence repository; then running npm install in the application will make a symlink from node_modules/bt-presence in the application to your bt-presence repository.
• npm run build should indeed be run from the root folder that contains the package.json of bt-presence .
• If you just want to change the code of bt-presence , you won't need to modify its package.json . You would only modify the package.json if you need to change any of the settings in there, eg, if you need to add additional dependencies to your version of bt-presence .

None of the above is really specific to TypeScript. (Some JavaScript packages have build processes too if they need to transform or package the JavaScript files in some way.)