1. context

you've developed a library and want to test it before deploying it to npmjs

• publishing to npmjs is irreversible.

2. prerequisites

we have two projects as shown below.

• mind-wired - the development project for the library you want to test, let's call it prjA
• sample-prj - a project for testing using mind-wired, let's call it prjB.

organizing your execution environment

• install node with nvm. it is recommended to use the same node version, as explained in the documentation below
• your library project is generating final deliverables in the dist directory. you want to test against the final deliverables (i.e. not against the actual code in prjA's src directory)
• you use live server in vscode to run a web server for testing

3. npm link

npm's command that creates a symbolic link as if you deployed the library in your local environment

prjA's root directory looks like this

mind-wired root directory
[mind-wired]
  +- package.json
  +- src
  +- dist
  +- ...

in the root directory with package.json, etc., run the npm link command like this

npm link execute
mind-wired git:(master) ✗ npm link

audited 303 packages in 2.344s

34 packages are looking for funding
  run `npm fund` for details

found 0 vulnerabilities

/Users/___/.nvm/versions/node/v14.18.2/lib/node_modules/mind-wired
-> /Users/___/workspace/ws-js/mind-wired

• this creates a symbolic link named mind-wired under .nvm as shown above

if you follow the path created, it looks like this

before running npm link

before generating the ```txt:link ➜ node_modules ls -al total 0 drwxr-xr-x 3 _____ staff 96 Nov 30 23:28 . drwxr-xr-x 4 _____ staff 128 Nov 30 23:28 ... drwxr-xr-x 24 _____ staff 768 Nov 30 23:28 npm

TXT
after running, the link is created as shown below

```txt:After link creation
➜ node_modules ls -al
total 0
drwxr-xr-x 4 ___ staff 128 May 23 10:50 .
drwxr-xr-x 4 ___ staff 128 Nov 30 23:28 ...
lrwxr-xr-x 1 ___ staff 42 May 23 10:50 mind-wired -> /Users/___/workspace/ws-js/mind-wired
drwxr-xr-x 24 ___ staff 768 Nov 30 23:28 npm

4. Testing

now we want to test prjB by including prjA.

from prjB's root directory, link to it as follows.

Command npm link prjA
mind-wired-test npm link mind-wired
/Users/___/workspace/ws-js/mind-wired-test/node_modules/mind-wired
 -> /Users/___/.nvm/versions/node/v14.18.2/lib/node_modules/mind-wired -> /Users/___/workspace/ws-js/mind-wired
➜ mind-wired-test

if we look at prjB's node_modules, it looks like this

TXT