Execute `npm` cli commands with SEA

[marwie]

Hello,

I'm currently exploring possibilities for node SEA apps

Is it possible to access npm cli commands from my custom binary (or bundle the npm cli together with my sea app)

E.g. a user downloads the custom binary my_bin
then invokes my_bin setup . to setup a project in the current directory
which internally will call the equivalent to npm install

Alternatively I'd be curious to hear what the best solution would be for such a case without reinventing the wheel

[marwie]

I tried bundling my app with npm as a dependency and calling the npm commands programmatically but this results in error: The programmatic API was removed in npm v8.0.0

/**
 * @param {string} directory
 */
export async function install(directory){
    const npm = await import("npm");
    const promise = new Promise(res => npm.commands.install([directory], (err, result, result2, result3) => {
        res(err == null);
    }));
    const res = await promise;
}

[marwie]

Related to #100

[GabenGar]

Why do you need npm install on an executable in the first place?

[marwie]

The idea was to bundle custom code that already exists as a node cli package with the node runtime - one of the usecases for the cli we have is to manage/install/build npm packages so we need to run npm commands (or invoke the same functionality ideally in another way).

Alternatively we could probably ship nodejs next to the cli tool - but we want to avoid requiring additional dependencies from users and control the installed node version.

[cspotcode]

I've had success doing this with yarn: bundling yarn and calling it programmatically.

I bet other alternative package managers would work, too.

[marwie]

Interesting, thanks for the heads up! I will test that!