run-run

run-run will allow you to define cross-platform environment variables. These environment variables can be used in npm scripts and accessed in Node scripts via process.env.

Usage

Install

$ npm install run-run --save-dev

Ways to define environment variables

You can define environment variables in three ways with run-run.

1. Regular old VARIABLE_NAME=variableValue
2. Pipe a JSON object to run-run and the variables of that object will be turned into variables.
3. Arguments passed to run-run will also be turned into environment variables

Regular old VARIABLE_NAME=variableValue

Example package.json using run-run with VARIABLE_NAME=variableValue:

{
  ... the rest of the stuff defined in package.json,

  scripts: {
    "start": "run-run SCRIPT=index.js TMP=temp.js -- 'npm run cp; npm run build'",
    "cp": "cp ./src/{SCRIPT} ./{TMP}",
    "build": "npm run browserify; npm run run-it",
    "browserify": "browserify ./temp.js > {SCRIPT}; rm ./temp.js",
    "run-it": "node {SCRIPT}"
  }
}

In the above example index.js into {SCRIPT} and temp.js will be injected into {TMP}. So with:

"cp": "cp ./src/{SCRIPT} ./{TMP}",
"browserify": "browserify ./temp.js > {SCRIPT}; rm ./temp.js",
"run-it": "node {SCRIPT}"

At runtime they become:

"cp": "cp ./src/index.js ./temp.js",
"browserify": "browserify ./temp.js > index.js; rm ./temp.js",
"run-it": "node index.js"

When npm run run-it is run index.js will be able to access the SCRIPT and TMP variables via process.env.SCRIPT and process.env.TMP.

It should be noted for Windows users you should define your variables after the run-run command and not before. Doing it this way will ensure your npm scripts will run cross platform.

Pipe JSON to run-run

Example package.json using run-run with pipes:

{
  ... the rest of the stuff defined in package.json,

  scripts: {
    "test": "cat vars.json | run-run -- 'node {SCRIPT}'"
  }
}

vars.json would look like this:

{
  "SCRIPT": "test/index.js"
}

Piping environment variables to your scripts is very powerful. For instance using inquirer you could write a small node script where a user can select a file to run and this could be piped to run-run.

Environment variables through run-run arguments

Example package.json using run-run with arguments:

{
  ... the rest of the stuff defined in package.json,

  scripts: {
    "test": "run-run --SCRIPT test/index.js -- 'node {SCRIPT}'"
  }
}

Similar Projects

• cross-env
• better-npm-run

License

MIT, see LICENSE.md for details.