Nslm NPM | npm.io

nslm - Node Symbolic Link Manager

Symbolically link node packages en masse for local development

NOTE: Some features have not been documented yet!

Ensure you have node version 14 or above:

node -v

Install globally with npm:

sudo npm install -g nslm

nslm register will recursively search all directories in the current working directory for node modules, saving their locations to ~/.nslm/modules.json
The locations registered will be what's used as the source for the given modules when linking.
As the command searches recursively, you may only need to run it once to capture all of your node projects. For example if you keep all of your node projects within a directory named Git repos, you can simply run nslm register in that folder and it'll register everything.
You'll only need to run the command again you wish to register a brand new module or move the location of any of them.
No additional arguments are required for this command.

nslm link needs arguments. You have a few options:
- --pathscontaining will link every single module that contains one or more given strings in its path (separated by spaces). For example you can run nslm link --pathscontaining my-directory-1 my-directory-2 and it will attempt link every module which contains either my-directory-1 or my-directory-2 in their paths.
- --modules will only link modules that match the exact name given. For example nslm link --modules my-node-project will only link the package with the name my-node-project.
- --a or --all will link every single module you registered with nslm register. This probably won't be what you want to do most of the time!
By default it will only link modules that you've already installed. For example let's say you want to link everything in my-directory-1 to my-node-project. If you haven't run npm install or yarn install (ie. the package isn't yet included in package.json), it will not link anything. To bypass this and link it anyway, add the --allowmissing argument. For example nslm link --pathscontaining my-directory-1 my-directory-2 --allowmissing
Be careful about running npm install or yarn install after you've linked a module to something, as this may unlink one or more modules. To fix, simply relink the module again.

nslm delink works in the same way as npm link, with most of the same arguments, but in reverse. Use it to put things back to normal. The --allowmissing argument won't do anything here.
You may want to use the --all argument most of the time to ensure everything has been reset in the given directory, rather than removing modules one at a time. It'll not only remove the symbolic links but will also try to restore your original local copy of the given module.
- For example let's say you're working in my-node-project and you've nslm linked a module called excellent-project. When I runnslm delink --all it'll remove that link and replace it with the module that was installed before you linked anything. If the module was missing to begin with (ie. you used the --allowmissing arg on nslm link) then nothing will be restored as nothing would've been there to back up in the first place.