Dynamic Installer

Dynamic Installer is a flexible, lightweight library for installing npm dependencies on the fly with custom options. Perfect for secure development environments where you might want to install libraries without altering the package.json (using options like --no-save) or to apply specific options to each dependency dynamically.

Security Warning ⚠️

Warning: This utility injects commands directly into the shell and is designed for secure, controlled development environments only. Avoid using it in production or in any exposed context, as it could be vulnerable to command injection.

Features

• Install dependencies dynamically with global or dependency-specific options.
• All npm install options are supported, as they are passed as strings directly to the npm command.
• Supports usage of options like --no-save to avoid modifying the package.json.
• Handles installation asynchronously, with results available via await or .then() for flexibility.

Supported Options

All options available to the npm install command can be used with Dynamic Installer, including:

• --save-dev, --save-optional, --no-save, --global: Control how dependencies are stored.
• --legacy-peer-deps, --force: Manage dependency compatibility.

You can find the complete list of options in the npm install documentation.

Installation

Install dynamic-installer via npm:

npm install dynamic-installer

Usage

Import the library's installDependencies function to start using it.

import { installDependencies } from 'dynamic-installer';

Basic Usage

You can use installDependencies by passing a configuration object with globalOptions and an array of dependencies. Each dependency can have its own specific options, and you can control if global options are overridden or combined.

Example

const options = {
  globalOptions: '--save-dev',
  dependencies: [
    { name: 'eslint', options: '--global' },
    { name: 'lodash', options: '--no-save', override: true },
    { name: 'mocha' }
  ]
};

// With async/await
const result = await installDependencies(options);
if (result.success) {
    console.log('All dependencies installed successfully!');
} else {
    console.error('Some dependencies failed to install:', result.details);
}

// Or using .then()
installDependencies(options)
    .then(result => {
        if (result.success) {
            console.log('All dependencies installed successfully!');
        } else {
            console.error('Some dependencies failed to install:', result.details);
        }
    });

Example Explanation

• globalOptions is applied by default to all dependencies unless overridden.
• eslint installs with its own --global option, ignoring the global option due to override: true.
• lodash combines its specific option --no-save with the global --save-dev option since override is false.
• mocha uses only the global option --save-dev as no specific options are defined.

Output

The promise resolves to an object with:

• success: Boolean indicating if all installations were successful.
• details: Array with individual statuses and messages for each dependency.

API

installDependencies(options)

• options (Object): Configuration object containing:
  • globalOptions (String): Global options applied to all dependencies unless overridden.
  • dependencies (Array of Objects): Each object can have:
    • name (String): Name of the dependency (required).
    • options (String): Specific options for this dependency (optional).
    • override (Boolean): Whether to override globalOptions. Defaults to true.

Returns: A Promise that resolves to an object with success (Boolean) and details (Array) on completion.

License

Licensed under the MIT License.