Install a locally developed npm package globally

After setting up the right package.json configuration, (mainly using {"bin": {...}}), You don’t have to publish it to NPM registry then download it again to see it working.

npm link made exactly for this situations. as described in the offical documentation:

npm link in a package folder will create a symlink in the global folder {prefix}/lib/node_modules/ that links to the package where the npm link command was executed.

Assuming you have this project:

-- my_module

-- -- index.js
-- -- cli.js
-- -- package.json

and you have this package.json:

{
  "name": "my_module",
  "bin": {
    "my_module": "cli.js"
  },
}

Run:

cd my_module

Then:

npm link

Now npm will install your package globally in your machine. it will check the package.json for the bin entry, and it will link my_module to the cli.js file. This will happen by creating a symlink in the global npm directory to your current directory.

now if you run in your command line:

my_module

it will point to the cli.js file. if you changed cli.js contents, it will be reflected the next time you run my_module, if you renamed my_module to my_module2, use npm unlink then npm link again.

On a different note, npm can use a full url as a package name, it will use the full url to download and install the package instead of looking at the npm registry, you can install packages from your own private Git hosts, for example:

npm install -g https://github.com/Me/my_module