🪄 open-resource

A simple, cross-platform Node.js CLI and library to open URLs or files using the system’s default application — works on macOS, Windows, and Linux.

✨ Features

• 🧠 Automatically detects OS and runs the appropriate command (open, start, or xdg-open)
• 🌍 Opens URLs in your default browser
• 📄 Opens local files and directories with their associated apps
• ⚙️ Works both as a CLI and an importable module
• 🪶 Zero dependencies — lightweight, fast, and easy to use

🚀 Installation

Global (CLI)

npm install -g open-resource

Local (Project)

npm install open-resource

🧰 CLI Usage

open-resource <file-or-url>

Examples:

# Open a website
open-resource https://www.salesforce.com

# Open a local PDF file
open-resource ./docs/report.pdf

# Open a directory
open-resource ./src

🧩 Node.js API

import { openResource } from "open-resource";

openResource("https://google.com");      // Open a URL in default browser
openResource("./files/myfile.txt");      // Open a file in associated app
openResource("./images");                // Open folder in file explorer

⚙️ How It Works

| Platform | Command Used | Example | | -------- | ------------ | ------------------------------- | | macOS | open | open "https://google.com" | | Windows | start | start "" "https://google.com" | | Linux | xdg-open | xdg-open "https://google.com" |

💻 Development Setup

git clone https://github.com/mchinnappan100/open-resource
cd open-resource
npm install
npm link

Test it locally:

open-resource https://www.salesforce.com

📦 Publish to npm

npm login
npm publish --access public

💡 Roadmap

• [ ] Add --app flag to specify custom app (e.g., Chrome, VSCode)
• [ ] Add --wait flag to block until app closes
• [ ] Add verbose logging option
• [ ] Support for WSL environments

⚖️ License

MIT © 2025 Mohan Chinnappan