How to register a local git package in Bower?

Question

How can I register a local git package in bower?

My current component.json is as follows

{
  "name": "myproject",
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "dependencies": {
    "jquery": "1.8.0",
    "twitter/bootstrap": "2.1.1"
  }
}

However I also would like to add a package I have created at C:/mypackage which is a git repository with versions tagged. When I do bower install --save C:/mypackage it properly adds it to project but it doesn't add it to my component.json.

I am trying bower register mypackage C:/mypackage but it keeps giving me

bower error Incorrect format

What am I doing wrong?

Answer 1

You can add any git repository as follows:

{
  "name": "myproject",
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "dependencies": {
    "jquery": "1.8.0",
    "twitter/bootstrap": "2.1.1",
    "myrepo":"git://myrepo.com/myrepo"
  }
}

Answer 2

Option 1: Public Bower registration

Bower is built mostly to share public (client-side) code in a "non-opinionated" manner. The primary use case, then, is to have a publicly accessible repository (on GitHub) that is registerd with a name and git repository url. I just did this myself:

bower register linksoup git://github.com/automatonic/linksoup

This is just telling the bower server that when you install linksoup to go and grab the code at the git://github.com/automatonic/linksoup repository, and put it in the local project's component directory.

If this is what you want to do, then just set up a repository on github/etc., push your code there, and then register with the resulting repository info.

Option 2: Private dependency

There are many reasons not to post your code at a publicly accessible repository. It may not be open source, etc. if your mypackage code is not meant to be public, then you should probably not be registering it on the public bower server... Further, even if you could register a local directory, it would only work on your machine...which defeats the purpose of sharing the code via bower.

If you just want to have bower manage a local, private dependency, then I am going to riff off of blockhead's solution:

{
  "name": "myproject",
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "dependencies": {
    "jquery": "1.8.0",
    "twitter/bootstrap": "2.1.1",
    "mypackage": "file:///path/to/mypackage/.git"
  }
}

This is just saying that myproject needs mypackage, and to use git clone to retrieve it. My guess is that this can use anything git can understand (including local repositories). But you should note that this may run into problems for anyone else working on this code that cannot access your local path.

Best Guess

It looks to me as if you may have assumed that bower register was a local operation (telling bower how to find a dependency via some sort of local registry). As far as I can tell, this is only a remote and public registration, which is why this is unsupported.

You may also be looking for a way to do something like a link operation with npm. That is, work on a dependency module without always having your dev cycle include a publish.

A little detail about how many people are involved and what you were trying to accomplish would facilitate a more targeted answer.

Answer 3

The big idea with bower is to easily share your projects' dependencies. So using local repo should be limited to testing.

Once you understand that, you should know that it is not –strictly– necessary to register your package in order to use it as a dependency.

This is due to the fact that bower depencency can specify either a version, a folder or a package. So you can use local repository.

Define as bower package

First you will need to define your dependency as a bower package:

# create the bower package
cd /path/to/you-need-me
bower init
# answer questions…

Add as project dependency

Then in your main project, the one that need the you-need-me dependency, edit bower.json file to add (or expand):

  "dependencies": {
    …
    "you-need-me":  "file:///path/to/you-need-me/.git/"
    "you-need-me-windows":  "C:/path/to/you-need-me-windows/.git/"
  }

So you don't give a version, but an local git endpoint, i.e. the subdirectory .git/.

Install dependency

In the man project install bower dependencies with:

cd /path/to/main-project/
bower install

Failure

bower you-need-me#*              ENOTFOUND Package /path/to/you-need-me/ not found

Check again your path and that you point to the .git/ directory of your dependency.

Success

You should get something like:

bower you-need-me#*             not-cached file:///path/to/you-need-me/.git/#*
bower you-need-me#*                resolve file:///path/to/you-need-me/.git/#*
bower you-need-me#*               checkout master
bower you-need-me#*               resolved file:///path/to/you-need-me/.git/#b18c753c6f
bower you-need-me#*                install you-need-me#b18c753c6f

Write a blog entry about that: Testing bower.json locally before registering package.

Answer 4

You can use bower link:

The link functionality allows developers to easily test their packages. Linking is a two-step process.

Using bower link in a project folder will create a global link. Then, in some other package, bower link <pkg> will create a link in the components folder pointing to the previously created link.

This allows to easily test a package because changes will be reflected immediately. Please note that bower will not fetch the linked package dependencies.

Bower will overwrite the link when installing/updating.