Execute npm cli commands with SEA

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

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;
}

Related to #100

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

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.

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

I bet other alternative package managers would work, too.

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

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Execute `npm` cli commands with SEA #115

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Execute npm cli commands with SEA #115

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marwie commented on Jan 27, 2025

marwie commented on Feb 10, 2025

GabenGar commented on Feb 11, 2025

marwie commented on Feb 11, 2025

cspotcode commented on Feb 11, 2025

marwie commented on Feb 11, 2025

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Execute `npm` cli commands with SEA #115