art-build-configurator (abc)

Tools for configuring npm (package.json) and webpack (webpack.config.js)

Initializing a new Art Suite App

NOTE: Your directory-name is used to initialize various files including package.json, so pick a good name.

# replace "my-app-name" with your appo's name
mkdir my-app-name
cd my-app-name

# create package.json forces npm to install in your directory
echo "{}" > package.json

# install & configure abc
npm install art-build-configurator
npx art-build-configurator --init app --git

# install newly configured dependencies
npm install

# start your app
npm start

Then go to: http://localhost:8080/webpack-dev-server/

Create Git Repository (highly recommended):

After you have your app initialized, create a git repository so you have a working state to roll back to as you work:

git init
git add * ".[a-zA-Z]*"
git commit -a -m 'initial checkin'

Configuring package.json

The original motivation for ABC is the problem that package.json is not code. There is no way to dynamically configure it with plain npm + node. ABC solves that. ABC's config file art.build.config.{caf/coffee/js} is evaluated before it is applied. You can execute arbitrary code to generate and return the config object.

The output package.json file is generated as follows:

1. Extract the current version from the current package.json. This is the only thing that is persisted. Everything else is replaced.
2. defaultPackage = ABC's default package.json
3. One of two things can happen depending upon the type of package = ArtBuildConfig.npm || ArtBuildConfig.package (two aliases):
   • package is an object: merged it: deepMerge defaultPackage, package
   • package is a function: invoke it: package(defaultPackage)
4. Set version to the version read in step 1
5. Write the resulting package.json