@mishguru/selfupdate

A handful of functions to implement self updating for globally installed NPM packages.

Installation

Add @mishguru/selfupdate to your project:

$ npm install --save @mishguru/selfupdate

Example

The selfupdate function will automatically check the NPM registry for a new version, and if it exists install it globally and live restart your app to use the new version.

It's important that you run selfupdate(pkg) as soon as your app starts. You must also await the promise it returns before doing anything else. Otherwise both the old and new versions will run simultaneously.

import { selfupdate } from '@mishguru/selfupdate'

import pkg from './package.json'

selfupdate(pkg).then(startMyApp)

Advanced Example

If you want a full control over how the upgrade works, then you can use the helper functions provided.

import {
  fetchLatestPackageVersion,
  installPackageVersion,
  respawnProcess
} from '@mishguru/selfupdate'

import pkg from './package.json'

const latestVersion = await fetchLatestPackageVersion(pkg.name)

if (pkg.version !== latestVersion) {
  await installPackageVersion(pkg.name, latestVersion)

  console.log(`Upgraded from ${pkg.version} to ${latestVersion}. Restarting...`)

  respawnProcess()
}

Documentation

selfupdate(package: object, options?: object): Promise<void>

Automatically check for updates, and install and restart if they are available.

The options available are:

• checkInterval: The number of milliseconds to wait before querying the registry. Set to 0 to query every time. Default is 1 hour.

Example:

import { selfupdate  } from '@mishguru/selfupdate'

import pkg from './package.json'

const start = async () => {
  await selfupdate(pkg, {
    checkInterval: 1 * 60 * 60 * 1000 // optional
  })

  console.log(`Running version ${pkg.version}`)
}

start().catch(console.error)

fetchLatestPackageVersion(packageName: string): Promise<string>

Find the latest version of a particular package.

Example:

import { fetchLatestPackageVersion } from '@mishguru/selfupdate'

import pkg from './package.json'

const latestVersion = await fetchLatestPackageVersion(pkg.name)

console.log(`Current version: ${pkg.version}`)
console.log(`Latest version: ${latestVersion}`)
console.log(`Up to date?: ${latestVersion === pkg.version}`)

installPackageVersion(packageName: string, packageVersion: string): Promise<void>

Install a specific version of a package.

You can also pass a tag instaed of a version. For example, you can pass 'latest' to install the latest version on NPM.

Example:

import { installPackageVersion } from '@mishguru/selfupdate'

import pkg from './package.json'

await installPackageVersion(pkg.name, '2.0.0')

respawnProcess()

Restart the current process, based on process.argv.

This function is useful when you self update your application and need to re run with the latest version.

Notice that the current process exits only when the child process does, so you must make sure the current process does not run any further code.

Example:

import { respawnProcess } from '@mishguru/selfupdate'

respawnProcess()