derive-pkg

A helper utility for publishing transpiled code to npm

Turn require('your-module/lib/submodule') into require('your-module/submodule')

What is this for?

The standard convention when publishing code transpiled with Babel is to place source code into src/ and transpiled code into lib/. Unfortunately, this makes consuming individual submodules inconvenient because they don't exist at the root of the package, e.g. one must require('the-module/lib/some-submodule.js').

This utility derives npm package metadata from your root directory and copies it to your build directory so you can publish it instead. Now lib/ is the root of your package!

derive-pkg does the following:

• Copies package.json from root with the changes below
  • Rebase main, bin, and browser field entry paths from lib/ to /
  • Omit devDependencies
• Copies files from root that npm will never ignore and should be included when publishing (e.g. readme, license, and changelog)
• Copies .gitignore/.npmignore from root as .npmignore

Install

npm install derive-pkg --save-dev

Quick Example

babel-cli src -d lib
derive-pkg -d lib
npm publish lib

Usage

Usage: derive-pkg [directory] [options]

Options:
      directory   The base directory containing the package.json (default: ".")

  --out-dir, -d   The output directory for the derived package.json

     --name, -n   Override the name field of the derived package.json

  --version, -v   Override the version field of the derived package.json

FAQ

Couldn't this just be a shell script?

Yep, but derive-pkg is cross-platform and has unit tests.