如何管理内部Node.JS模块

Question

What would be the preferred way to handle internal modules within a node.js application?

I mean, currently we have a fairly big application and there are several dependencies, installed via npm. We have node_modules in .gitignore . Therefore it's not in the repository. We use npm shrinkwrap to freeze the modules versions, so, upon deployment, an npm install puts together eveything we need into node_modules .

The problem is, since out app is getting bigger, we want to split it to smaller modules. Now, if I create a foo module and put it in node_modues , I need to allow it in the repo, which does not seem so neat to have both ignored and checked out modules in node_modules .

We can not publish these on npm registry because they are not really "public".

Is there any obvious solution that I'm not aware of?

Answer 1

I agree with your aesthetic of not mixing 3rd-party non-repo stuff with your in-house revision-controlled contents.

The NODE_PATH search path variable can help you here, you can use a different directory with contents under revision control.

http://nodejs.org/api/modules.html

Depending on your appetite for flexibility vs complexity, you can consider a build step that actually copies your various node modules from wherever you keep them, into an output directory (probably "named node_modules" but not necessarily).

Answer 2

A common solution is to store the modules in a private Git repository somewhere, and then use a git:// URL as a dependency; npm knows how to clone repositories as dependencies.