How To Install Specified Directory Using NPM?

To install a specified directory using npm, you can use npm’s ability to install local modules directly from a directory on your machine. This is particularly useful when you're working with custom packages, private modules, or developing a project across multiple repositories and need to share a module that hasn't been published to the npm registry.

In this article, we will explore how to install a package from a local directory using npm, and how this helps in sharing local modules across projects or testing packages before publishing them to the npm registry.

Why Install a Directory Using npm?

There are several cases where installing a module from a directory is useful:

• Local Development: You might be developing a package locally and want to test it in different projects before publishing it.
• Private Modules: Some modules may not be published to npm for security or privacy reasons, and are shared as directories.
• Testing and Debugging: If you want to test a package in another project without publishing it, installing it directly from a local directory saves time.

Steps to Install npm To A Specific Directory

Step 1: Check if Node is installed or not in your system.

node -v

Now, if the Node version is displayed something like "

v12.18.3"

then you may conclude that Node is pre-installed on the PC or laptop, if not installation of Node.js on Windows according to your PC requirement and version and you can also install the previous version of node.js.

Step 2: Open up a javascript project in an editor in which you want to install the npm package.

To create a sub-directory: We can also create a sub-directory and install npm packages. To create a sub-directory "cd"(change directory) into the project directory and make use of mkdir command.

To create a new folder: To create a new Folder/directory we can use mkdir <folder name> and to make a sub-directory or sub-folder inside a directory/folder use the command mkdir -p <folder name>.

Here, we will be creating a directory named "new" under the "TEST" project folder in which will install the npm package. So, we will be using the command in the terminal  "mkdir -p new" once our directory in the terminal is set to our Project directory i.e "TEST" and we can see our project files are structured somewhat in this manner under the "TEST" main directory.

Step 3: Now, our final step to install npm to a specific directory will be to make use of the --prefix option, Here we will be making use of the following command to install npm to a specific directory.

npm install --prefix ./(folder/sub_folder_name) <package name>

Installing npm package "animation" in the current directory and using below command:

npm install --prefix ./new animation

Output:

Now, as we have installed our required npm package into our desired sub-directory i.e "new", we can check our "new" directory by opening it and we can see that the following package is successfully installed into the directory.

Updated Project structure:

Also Read

• How to Install a local module using npm?
• How to update Node.js and NPM to next version?
• How to update all Node.js dependencies to their latest version?