npmd

distributed npm client.

npmd is an alternative npm client that uses local replication and smart caching improve performance by eliminating unnecessary network round-trips. It is intended for use in the antipodes, via 3g, in airplanes, submarines, up trees, and in caves. But it is still faster if you live in california too.

install

install carefully.

npm install npmd@1 -g --carefully

jokes

npmd may contain some jokes. If you do not have precious time to waste with jokes, you may disable them by setting the npmd_jokes=0 enviroment variable, or passing --no-jokes on the command line or setting "jokes": false in the ~/.npmd/config file. See rc documentation for how to pass any configuration setting.

Note: disabling jokes also disables careful mode.

npmd@1

I've recently rewritten the heart of npmd, adding npmd-cache and changing how npmd-resolve and npmd-install retrive modules.

Syncing metadata was one of the best ideas in npmd@0, but also one of the most annoying. Syncing is gone for now, but it will return soon as an option. npmd@1 is much more simple, and, by using Alan Gutierrez's pure javascript database Locket, npmd will not require a compiled node addon and so will be easy to run even on windows. (this is still in development, so bear with us)

npmd-cache

npmd keeps a cache of modules you have installed, but it works different to npm's cache.

npm keeps a cache of modules at versions, see ~/.npm/{module}/{version} and of npm docs that npm has downloaded ~/.npm/{module}/.cache.json. Unfortunately, this does not work well offline, because it does not cache modules that were installed via git or http urls. (any module with a largish dependency tree is likely to have at least one of these)

npmd-cache works differently, it's cache is divided into two parts - the mutable side, and the immutable side. The immutable side stores tarballs, and the mutable side stores module ids. What is a module id? there are several ways to identify a module in npm. The best is by it's name and version {module}@{version} but you can also install tarballs from http or git urls (if they return something containing a package.json).

There is no standard way to tell wether a url refers to an immutable resource. That means that the next time you request that url it may be give a different response. Even {module}@{version} is nearly immutable, but not completely, because module versions can be deleted.

However, code changes relatively slowly, and if you are working offline (freedom from distractions) so npmd stores what tarball shasum a module id points to, so you can install that module again later. Since the tarballs are identified by their shasum, so you can always grab an exact version.

npmd-resolve

npmd splits out resolving a dependency tree from installing a dependency tree, but in npm these two things are tangled together. npmd-resolve takes a module id, or {module}@{versionRange} and builds a json object that represents all the modules which should be installed, and the shasums they should have.

The format of this object is compatible with the json generated by the npm shrinkwrap command, which can be used to install exactly the same deps again.

npmd-resolve in bundled inside npmd, but it can also be used as a standalone tool.

npm install npmd-resolve -g

npmd-resolve npmd > npmd.deps.json

this can then be fed into npmd-install

npmd-install

npmd-install takes a dependency tree with shasums and extracts them into a node_modules folder. it is bundled inside npmd or can be installed as a standalone tool.

npm install npmd-install -g

npmd-install < npmd.deps.json

note, since npmd-install and npmd-resolve may both write to the mutable database inside npmd-cache, you cannot run them both at the same time. If you want to feed the output of one into the other, you must do so via a file.

npmd-resolve browserify > b; npmd-install < b; rm b

This will get fixed at some point, but for now the simplest is just to use npmd install browserify

help

display help files

npmd help $command

install

install a module. if the module's dependencies are in the cache, then npmd will install without making a single network round trip!

npmd install browserify --greedy

--greedy is optional, if enabled, the dependency tree is flattened as much as possible. so you have less duplication.

use --global to install a command globally.

resolve

resolve all module versions required to install a given module. will write json to stdout in the same format as npm-shrinkwrap.

npmd resolve request

License

MIT