lokal

A sane way to handle local imports for npm and node.

const myDependency = require('lokal')('myDependency');

Motivation

By default, local imports look like this in Node.js:

const myModule = require('./../../myFolder/myFile.js');

This is unwieldy for a number of reasons:

• Importing the same file in different places requires a different path.
• Moving a file requires updating all imports in the file.
• Moving the file requires updating all files that import it.
• Other languages/environments have spoiled us.

Install

npm install lokal --save

Usage

Add the following to your package.json file. Note that all of the standard path formats for require() are accepted:

"localDependencies": {
  "dependency1": "test/dependency1/",
  "dependency-2": "/test/dependency2/dependency2.js",
  "dependency3": "test/dependency3/nested/index.js"
}

Import your local dependency like this:

const dependency1 = require('lokal')('dependency1');
const dependency2 = require('lokal')('dependency-2');

A second parameter can be specified as an alternative to require(). For example, to rewire a dependency for writing tests.

const rewire = require('rewire');
const rewiredDependency3 = require('lokal')('dependency3', rewire);

Now when you move a file, the import path only needs to be updated in one place. Additionally, the name used to identify the file as a local dependency in package.json is not tied directly to the file path or file name. It can also be helpful to have a complete list of local dependencies in one location.