learn-node/exploring-local-node-modules-bin-folder

exploring-local-node-modules-bin-folder.md

Exploring node_modules/.bin folder.

This is just learning journal for myself and I welcome any help from the public to improve my understanding.

Whether a globally or locally installed module, eventually it will reside within a node_modules directory. The contents of this gist is scopped within the local node_modules of an application's directory. Now within the local node_modules there should always exist a .bin folder that houses all the excutable files.

What I've gathered thus far:

1. On Unix/macOs, this files have the chmod 755 or 777 permissions to run as scripts.
2. All of these files start with #!/usr/bin/env node on the very first line.
3. These files do not require any file extensions (perhaps they are scripts).

Experimented with

• Created a file Foo in a local ./node_modules/.bin

  #!/usr/bin/env node
  
  console.log("Hello ${process.argv[2]}") //Because process.argv's first and second element are reserved for Node.js

• From a shell session, run chmod 755 ./node_modules/.bin/foo from the application's directory.

• Include "foo": "foo World!" in the associated package.json

• Run npm run foo in shell. This should return Hello World! in the terminal