How to publish a CLI tool on NPM?

 

Hello Developers

Recently I wanted to create a CLI tool, but I only know JavaScript, so I researched and found out that we can create CLI applications using JavaScript. I published my CLI tool named track-task and will show you how to publish a package in NPM. You can download and use it.

npm i -g track-task

How to publish NPM package?

Step 1:- Initialize npm by npm init -y
It will create a default package.json file, which will look something like

{
  "name": "track-task",
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "description": "",
  "main": "index.js",
  "scripts": {
    "test": "echo \"Error: no test specified\" && exit 1"
  },
  "keywords": [],
  "author": "",
  "license": "ISC"
}

Points to note here

• Name should be unique, otherwise it will throw error while publishing.
• Start with version 1.0.0 and remember to update to version whenever you make changes to your code.
• Add a bin as " bin "./index.js" from this point your code will run.
• Add keywords and author name to stand out.

Step 2:- Code your application.
Code your whole application and test it out locally and make sure to add #! /usr/bin/env node, it makes your file executable.

Step 3:- Add more info to package.json.
Add repository, bugs and homepage urls

{
  ...
  "repository": {
    "type": "git",
    "url": "git+https://github.com/shareef99/task-tracker.git"
  },
  "bugs": {
    "url": "https://github.com/shareef99/task-tracker/issues"
  },
  "homepage": "https://github.com/shareef99/task-tracker/#readme",
}

Step 4:- Publishing your CLI tool

• Create npm account.
• Login into npm account from terminal.

npm login

• Enter the username and password.
• Make sure you are ready to publish.
• Publish your package.

npm publish

Congratulations ✨✨✨ You have published the npm package.

Step 5:- Updating package.
Don't forget to change the version of in package.json file after update your code. Once you are done with the coding, run npm publish.

from  https://dev.to/shareef/how-to-publish-a-cli-tool-on-npm-j3p