package.json file in yournode project contain (among others) links to the packages that your projects needs to run.

To add new package dependency, you can runnpm add command:

 npm add chalk

And after that respective package will be added to thedependencies section of yourpackage.json:

{"name":"sandbox","main":"index.js","dependencies":{"chalk":"^4.1.2"}}

But what if instead of apublished npm package I want to use a branch that is living on GitHub? Luckilypackage.json definition allows GitHub URLs. The syntax is one of:

github:[user]/[project]github:[user]/[project]#[commit-sha]github:[user]/[project]#[branch]github:[user]/[project]#[tag]

Thegithub: part is optional, but gives some context to your future self.

Whereuser andproject you can extract from the GitHub URLs of respective repositories:https://github.com/[user]/[project]/

So for example to install commit95d74cbe8d3df3674dec1445a4608d3288d8b73c of the package/projectchalk (which happens to have GitHubuser of the same name) I would have to specify:

{"name":"sandbox","main":"index.js","dependencies":{"chalk":"github:chalk/chalk#95d74cbe8d3df3674dec1445a4608d3288d8b73c"}}

Semver

There is one more curious format that can be used in GitHub URLs and that issemver. The syntax is:

github:[user]/[project]#semver:[semver]"

So for example to installchalk withsemver^2.4.1 we should put following into ourpackage.json:

{"name":"sandbox","main":"index.js","dependencies":{"chalk":"github:chalk/chalk#semver:^2.4.1"}}

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