nslm - Node Symbolic Link Manager

Symbolically link node packages en masse for local development

NOTE: Some features have not been documented yet!

Installation

Ensure you have node version 14 or above:

node -v

Install globally with npm:

sudo npm install -g nslm

Usage

Register

• nslm register will recursively search all directories in the current working directory for node modules, saving their locations to ~/.nslm/modules.json
• The locations registered will be what's used as the source for the given modules when linking.
• As the command searches recursively, you may only need to run it once to capture all of your node projects. For example if you keep all of your node projects within a directory named Git repos, you can simply run nslm register in that folder and it'll register everything.
• You'll only need to run the command again you wish to register a brand new module or move the location of any of them.
• No additional arguments are required for this command.

Link

• nslm link needs arguments. You have a few options:
  • --pathscontaining will link every single module that contains one or more given strings in its path (separated by spaces). For example you can run nslm link --pathscontaining my-directory-1 my-directory-2 and it will attempt link every module which contains either my-directory-1 or my-directory-2 in their paths.
  • --modules will only link modules that match the exact name given. For example nslm link --modules my-node-project will only link the package with the name my-node-project.
  • --a or --all will link every single module you registered with nslm register. This probably won't be what you want to do most of the time!
• By default it will only link modules that you've already installed. For example let's say you want to link everything in my-directory-1 to my-node-project. If you haven't run npm install or yarn install (ie. the package isn't yet included in package.json), it will not link anything. To bypass this and link it anyway, add the --allowmissing argument. For example nslm link --pathscontaining my-directory-1 my-directory-2 --allowmissing
• Be careful about running npm install or yarn install after you've linked a module to something, as this may unlink one or more modules. To fix, simply relink the module again.

Delink

• nslm delink works in the same way as npm link, with most of the same arguments, but in reverse. Use it to put things back to normal. The --allowmissing argument won't do anything here.
• You may want to use the --all argument most of the time to ensure everything has been reset in the given directory, rather than removing modules one at a time. It'll not only remove the symbolic links but will also try to restore your original local copy of the given module.
  • For example let's say you're working in my-node-project and you've nslm linked a module called excellent-project. When I run nslm delink --all it'll remove that link and replace it with the module that was installed before you linked anything. If the module was missing to begin with (ie. you used the --allowmissing arg on nslm link) then nothing will be restored as nothing would've been there to back up in the first place.