Add command line tool from npm package to environment

[svenjacobs]

I'm currently evaluating pkgx and it looks very promising. I was wondering if it's possible to add an arbitrary command from an npm package to the current environment either through env or via a pkgx.yaml for dev?

So let's say I want to use firebase-tools.
I can either call it via

❯ pkgx npx firebase-tools -- --version
12.6.2

or

❯ env +node
❯ npx firebase-tools -- --version
12.6.2

but can I also make it available in the current environment as if it was installed globally?

❯ firebase --version
cmd not found: firebase

firebase is the command that is provided by the firebase-tools package.

[jhheider]

I believe this would be: pkgx npm i -g firebase-tools to install the npm package into npm's global cache. Or firebase-tools could be packaged into the pantry.

[svenjacobs]

Thanks for your response. I'm preferably looking for a solution that doesn't require an additional command (every time) when entering the dev environment. So currently the only solution would be to provide a package for firebase-tools in the pantry?

[jhheider]

Or install it with npm i -g. That'll install to npms local global store.

[svenjacobs]

Or install it with npm i -g. That'll install to npms local global store.

Yes, you're right. I didn't communicate my intentions right: I'm looking for a solution where we in a team, after every developer installed pkgx and integrated it into the shell, just need to enter our project dir and don't need to perform any additional initial setup steps like npm i -g.

Anyway, I created a pull request for firebase-tools 😃

[svenjacobs]

At least for firebase there is now a solution: this is packaged as google.com/firebase-tools.

[mxcl]

This would be a neat feature for sure.

One way would be to allow dev to create shell functions, then:

firebase() {
    npx -- firebase "$@"
}

Could be defined inside that working directory. This isn’t ideal since it means the tool only works at your prompt and not deeper, but it may be enough for your needs.

Another way would be to make a shim .bin/firebase and add .bin to the PATH in your keyfile YAML-FM.

env:
  PATH: {{srcroot}}/.bin:${{PATH}

A third (more official) way is to package firebase for the pantry, we've already done this for a few npm packages and have no issue adding such things.

I would like if npm (etc) tools could be added to the dev env automatically since this is part of the appeal of dev so I'll keep thinking on it.

[svenjacobs]

That sounds great! I also had the idea that maybe aliases could be defined in pkgx.yaml that resolve to the pkgx command?

aliases:
  firebase: npx@latest firebase-tools@latest --

so when executing firebase within the environment, this resolves to pkgx npx@latest firebase-tools@latest --

[jhheider]

This is a cool idea. Two things we have packaged that allow convenient shipping of command runners are xcfile.dev and just.systems. So, there's lots of ways to solve this problem.