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Zsh/NPM Packages#

Introduction#

Zinit can install NPM packages if they contain Zsh-related metadata (i.e.: the field "zsh-data") in the package.json.

So basically what this means is that you can install plugins normally, like before, however with use of a metadata stored in the NPM package registry. This way you don't have to (but still can) specify ices, which might be handy when the ice-mod list is long and complex.

Pros Of Using Zinit NPM-Support For Regular Software Installations#

Using Zinit to install software where one could use a regular package manager has several advantages:

  1. Pro: The Zinit NPM packages typically use the URLs to the official and latest distributions of the software (like e.g.: the ecs-cli package, which uses the following URL: https://amazon-ecs-cli.s3.amazonaws.com/ecs-cli-linux-amd64-latest (when run on Linux).

  2. Pro: You can influence the installation easily by specifying Zinit ice-mods, e.g.:

    zinit pack=bgn atclone="cp fzy.1 $ZPFX/man/man1" for fzy

    to install also the man page for the fzy fuzzy finder (this omission in the package will be fixed soon).

  3. Pro: The installation is much more flexible than a normal package manager. Example available degrees of freedom:

    • to install from Git or from release-tarball, or from binary-release file,
    • to install via shims or via extending $PATH, or by copying to $ZPFX/bin,
    • to download files and apply patches to the source by using the Patch-Dl annex features.

  4. Pro: The installations are located in the user home directory, which doesn't require root access. Also, for Gems and Node modules, they are installed in their plugin directory, which can have advantages (e.g.: isolation allowing e.g: easy removal by rm -rf …).

  5. Con: You're somewhat "on your own", with no support from any package maintainer.

Thus, summing up 1. with 4., it might be nice/convenient to, for example, have the latest ECS CLI binary installed in the home directory, without using root access and always the latest, and – summing up with 2. and 3. – to, for example, have always the latest README downloaded by an additional ice: dl'https://raw.githubusercontent.com/aws/amazon-ecs-cli/master/README.md' (and then to have the README converted into a man page by the remark Markdown processor or other via an atclone'' ice, as the tool doesn't have any official man page).

Adding Your Own Package#

You can contact me to have the repository at the Zsh-Packages organization. Then, you'll only need to:

  1. Create an NPM account

  2. Invoke npm login.

  3. Populate the package.json – I suggest grabbing the one for fzf or doctoc and doing a few substitutions like doctoc → your-project and then simply filling the default profile in the zinit-ices object – it's obvious how to do this.

  4. The project name in the package.json should start with zsh-. The prefix will be skipped when specifying it with Zinit.

  5. Commit and invoke npm publish.

That's all!