NPM to pull from private GitLab repository

Question

I have a GitLab domain, project and repo. This project is accessible via a group I am apart of.

I would like for this to be downloaded via npm install in the following ways:

• Local computer
• GitLab CI job
• Inside of a Docker container

I'm guessing the easiest way of doing this is to just make it public. Is there a way to fix this so it is secure. I can imagine that it must be done with keys.

In my package.json under dependencies I currently have this, but it gives a 401 error of course:

"my-module": "my-domain.com:my-project/my-repo#my-branch",

I do not want hardcoded tokens in the package.json file, if it can be avoided.

Answer 1

You can use SSH keys to access your repository. Add ssh keys to GitLab server and define url to your repsitory in following form:

git+ssh://git@git.mydomain.com:Username/Repository#{branch|tag}

or

git+ssh://git@git.mydomain.com/Username/Repository#{branch|tag}

In your package.json it will be something like this "my-module": "git+ssh://git@my-domain.com:my-project/my-repo#my-branch"

If your ssh key is password protected, then npm will ask for password.