Sometimes, we want to provide a lightweight, small package for other projects. To achieve this, we only want to upload the most basic files into the package, while sharing the full project and source code on a website. This package helps in assembling the necessary files for uploading.

We minimize the content of the package.json. We provide an option to add a custom README.md for the NPM package. We offer an option to add files to a custom public directory. The project source code is not included in the package; instead, only the product code is shared.

With these measures, the size of our package release versions is reduced since they do not contain unnecessary files, while still being able to publish TypeScript-compatible packages.

Installation

Supports

• Vite >=5
• Node >=21

npm install @datarose/npm-package-builder --save-dev

Startup

datarose.config.ts (not required)

import { defineConfig } from '@datarose/npm-package-builder'

export default defineConfig({
  // your configuration
  // ...
  // defaults:
  distDir: 'dist',
  publicNpmDir: 'public_npm',
  distNpmDir: 'dist_npm',
  license: 'GPL-3.0',
  includeDevDependencies: false,
  includeScripts: false,
  includeBin: true,
})

.gitignore

dist/*
dist_npm/*

How to work?

Run the publish command. The publish command is customizable. You can specify whether to release a private or public package. (Only public packages can be uploaded to npmjs.com for free.) You can specify whether you want to publish or just see the contents of the directory to be published. (Use the --offline flag for this.) We attempt to build the product code using the default build command (with npm, pnpm, and yarn detection). If you need to use a different command to build your product code, you can pass it through the --build flag. Here are a few examples:

# Default (for public package)
npx publish

# For private package
npx publish --private

# Without publish (just make a package)
npx publish --offline

# With unique build command
npx publish --build "npm run myuniquecommand"
npx publish --build "pnpm run myuniquecommand"
npx publish --build "yarn run myuniquecommand"

Early Access

The package is still very primitive, and we have many more plans for the future. We aim to drastically reduce the size of NPM packages and have full control over their content. A separate package.json file, along with distinct README.md and other files, can be included for packaging the NPM modules. This approach allows for separate customization of files used for development and those released in the product.

Open Source Repository

While we haven't opened the plugin's repository to the public yet, we are actively working towards doing so and fostering an active community to improve the package's quality.

License

All rights reserved as specified in the LICENSE file! This project can be considered reusable, copyable, and/or distributable, provided that the original public repository link is included in the source code and made visible to those who use the product that incorporates this source code/package.