20.04 Making Node CLI package

Intro

This article is about making a npm CLI package to install / manage a self-made framework.

The first thing I did was making 2 repositories on git:

• The framework
• The CLI

Workspace

I added them to a vscode workspace for simplicity. You might also want to add a 3rd folder to it, where you will test your CLI

In the CLI, run the following commands:

npm init -y
npm install commander axios tar

The first command creates the package.json, and the second one adds a necessary package.

Then add the following to your package.json:

"bin": { 
	"<your-command>": "./bin/<your-command>.js" 
},

Then add a folder called bin with a file called <your-command>.js inside it.

<your-command>

Make sure to replace <your-command> with the name you want to use, like angular has ng, and I’ll use kazamata.

Now add the following code to <your-command>.js:

const { Command } = require('commander');
const axios = require('axios');
const tar = require('tar');
const fs = require('fs');
const path = require('path');
const program = new Command();
 
// Function to download and extract a GitHub release
async function downloadRelease(repo, dest) {
  const url = `https://api.github.com/repos/${repo}/releases/latest`;
  const response = await axios.get(url);
  const tarballUrl = response.data.tarball_url;
 
  const writer = fs.createWriteStream(dest);
  const responseTar = await axios.get(tarballUrl, { responseType: 'stream' });
  responseTar.data.pipe(writer);
 
  return new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
    writer.on('finish', resolve);
    writer.on('error', reject);
  });
}
 
// Function to extract the tarball
async function extractTarball(tarballPath, extractPath) {
  await tar.x({
    file: tarballPath,
    cwd: extractPath,
    strip: 1
  });
}
 
// Ensure the directory exists before extracting the tarball
async function ensureDirectoryExists(directory) {
  return fs.promises.mkdir(directory, { recursive: true });
}
 
program
  .command('new <app-name>')
  .option('--demo-app', 'Include demo app')
  .action(async (appName, options) => {
    const repo = options.demoApp ? 'your-username/your-demo-repo' : 'your-username/your-base-repo';
    const dest = path.resolve(__dirname, `${appName}.tgz`);
    const extractPath = path.resolve(process.cwd(), appName);
 
    console.log(`Creating a new project in ${extractPath}...`);
 
    try {
      await ensureDirectoryExists(extractPath);
      await downloadRelease(repo, dest);
      await extractTarball(dest, extractPath);
      fs.unlinkSync(dest);
      console.log('Project created successfully!');
    } catch (error) {
      console.error('Error creating project:', error);
    }
  });
 
program
  .command('generate <type> <name>')
  .action((type, name) => {
    console.log(`Generating ${type} named ${name}...`);
    // Add your generation logic here
  });
 
program.parse(process.argv);```
 
>[!important] `your-username/your-demo-repo`
> 
>
>Don't forget to replace `your-username/your-demo-repo` with the actual path. For example, this is my repo:
>
>https://github.com/oldmartijntje/Project-Kazamata will become `oldmartijntje/Project-Kazamata`
 

npm link

and then in the repo where you want to install it, try:

new my-app-name

and now it should be installed (if you made a release on your github repo.)

## uploading to npm

This tutorial shows how to upload a package to npm, it will work the same for your CLI tool, just from another path.

![[23.12 Angular Packages and creation#publish-to-npm|publish to npm]]