Fallback-cli NPM

fallback-cli

Default to the locally installed version of your CLI, use the global one if not found.

This allows users to install your tool globally, but revert to whatever version is installed locally in node_modules. npm already handles this when running scripts defined in package.json, but this works even when invoking your CLI command directly from the console.

Install

$ npm install --save fallback-cli

Usage

The following assumes you have a package named my-module, and the CLI script is bin/cli.js.

First, create cli-shim.js, and place it in the same directory as your current CLI script.

bin/cli-shim.js:

#!/usr/bin/env node
require('fallback-cli')('my-module/bin/cli.js');

Next update your package.json to point to cli-shim.js.

{
  "name": "my-module",
  "bin": "bin/cli-shim.js"
}

That is it!

Your globally installed CLI will use the local version from node_modules if it exists. In most cases this will even be compatible with old versions of your CLI before you introduced fallback-cli.

Note: cli.js and cli-shim.js are arbitrary file names, use whatever you want.

API

fallbackCli(path, relativePath, customRunner)

Only path is required.

path: must be a string describing your packages name, and the path to your CLI within the package (i.e. my-module/bin/my-cli.js).
relativePath: It is highly recommended that your "shim" to be installed in the same directory as the actual CLI. If that is not possible, you may use relativePath to describe where it is relative to the shim.
```
```js
fallbackCli('my-module/bin/the-cli.js', '../bin/the-cli.js');
```
```
If specified, relativePath must point to the same file as path.
customRunner: A callback that that will be invoked with a single runnerOptions object. It should launch your CLI implementation.
The default runner is simple:
```
function defaultRunner(runnerOptions) {
  require(runnerOptions.cli);
}
```

runnerOptions

If you specify a customRunner function, it is passed an object with these properties:

localCli: The absolute path of the CLI script in the locally installed module. It will be null if there is no local install.
globalCli: The absolute path of the CLI script in the globally installed module. It will be null if the locally installed script was invoked directly (i.e. via npm run <script>, or ./node_modules/.bin/my-cli).
localPkg: The absolute path of package.json in the local module. Useful for determining the version of the local install. It will be null if there is no local install, or in the very unlikely event package.json could not be found in the locally installed module.
globalPkg: The absolute path of package.json in the global module. Useful for determining the version of the global install. It will be null if the locally installed script was invoked directly, or if package.json could not be found in the globally installed module.
It is possible to confuse the algorithm that finds the global package.json if you do not put the shim in the same directory as the CLI script and use the relativePath argument. For this reason, it is highly recommended you put them both in the same directory and avoid using relativePath.
cli: The same as localCli if found, otherwise falls back to be the same as globalCli. Convenience property for implementing a graceful fallback.
pkg: The same as localPkg if found, otherwise falls back to be the same as globalPkg.
location: Either "local" or "global" depending on which is found (local takes precedence).