django-npm

Want to use npm modules in your django project without vendoring them? django-npm serves as a wrapper around the npm command-line program as well as a staticfiles finder.

Installation

1. pip install django-npm
2. Make sure you have npm installed
3. Make sure you have a package.json listing your dependencies
4. If you use a private registry, make sure your .npmrc is set up to connect to it
5. Add npm.finders.NpmFinder to STATICFILES_FINDERS
6. Set some paths in your project's settings.py
7. ./manage.py collectstatic

Configuration

• NPM_PREFIX_PATH: absolute path to the npm "prefix' directory - this is where npm will look for your package.json, put your node_modules folder and look for a .npmrc file
• NPM_EXECUTABLE_PATH: (optional) defaults to wherever npm is on your PATH. If you specify this, you can override the path to the npm executable. This is also an absolute path.
• NPM_DESTINATION_PREFIX: (optional) Your npm files will end up under this path inside static. I usually use something like 'js/lib' (so your files will be in /static/js/lib/react.js for example) but you can leave it blank and they will just end up in the root.

By default, django-npm will expose all files in node_modules to Django as staticfiles. You may not want all of them to be exposed. You can pick specific files by adding some additional configuration:

NPM_FILE_PATTERNS = {
    'react': ['react.js'],
    'express': ['lib/*.js', 'index.js']
}

Keys are the names of the npm modules, and values are lists containing strings. The strings match against glob patterns.

Usage

When you do a ./manage.py collectstatic, django-npm will run npm install for you and copy all the files into your STATIC_ROOT.

Changelog

• v0.1.4 - Fix bug with NPM_EXECUTABLE_PATH (thanks @yohanboniface)
• v0.1.3 - Actually fix destination bug
• v0.1.2 - Fix bug with destination prefix
• v0.1.1 - manage.py runserver bugfix
• v0.1.0 - Add NPM_FILE_PATTERNS setting
• v0.0.1 - initial release