switching npm registry based on directory

Question

I have recently started developing for node. The company that I work for has an internal npm registry. I want to know how to use different registry settings depending upon where I am developing. To illustrate, I have a directory structure like shown below:

~/Code | | -- My Projects | | | | -- Proj 1  | | -- Proj 2 | |-- My Company   |   |--Proj 1    |--Proj 2 

When I am developing in one of the projects in 'My Project', I would like the npm registry to point to https://registry.npmjs.org (the default registry). But when I am developing in one of the projects in 'My Company', I want npm registry to point to the company specific registry. Right now, my naive method is to use npm config set registry to update the registry.

Answer 1

There are two distinct use cases for using your private npm registry:

1. Installing: use the --reg or --registry flag:

   npm install mypackage --reg http://myreg.npmjitsu.com 

2. Publishing: you can also use --reg or --registry, but I would highly recommend that you use the publishConfig setting in your package.json file (See: the npm documentation)

   {   "publishConfig": {     "registry": "http://myreg.npmjitsu.com"   } } 

   This prevents developers from accidentally publishing private modules to the public registry by forgetting the --registry flag

So add publishConfig to all of the package.json for your Company use --registry when installing from their private npm.