How to specify local modules as npm package dependencies

Question

I have an application which has the usual set of dependencies on third party modules (e.g. "express") specified in the `package.json` file under dependencies. E.g. ``` "express" : "3.1.1" ``` I would like to structure my own code modularly and have a set of local (meaning on the file system I am currently in) modules be installed by the `package.json`. I know that I can install a local module by running: ``` npm install path/to/mymodule ``` However, I don't know how to make this happen via the package.json dependencies structure. Using the `--save` option in this command is simply putting `"mymodule": "0.0.0"` into my package.json (doesn't reference the filepath location). If i then remove the installed version from node_modules, and try to re-install from the package.json, it fails (because it looks for "mymodule" in the central registry, and doesn't look locally). I'm sure the is a way of telling the `"dependencies": {}` structure that I want it to be installed from a file system pa…

Accepted Answer

`npm install` now supports this

```
npm install --save ../path/to/mymodule
```

For this to work `mymodule` must be configured as a module with its own `package.json`. See Creating NodeJS modules.

As of npm 2.0, local dependencies are supported natively. See danilopopeye's answer to a similar question. I've copied his response here as this question ranks very high in web search results.

This feature was implemented in the version 2.0.0 of npm. For example:

```
{
  "name": "baz",
  "dependencies": {
    "bar": "file:../foo/bar"
  }
}
```

Any of the following paths are also valid:

```
../foo/bar
~/foo/bar
./foo/bar
/foo/bar
```

syncing updates

Since `npm install <folder>` adds the package in the directory as a symlink in the current project any changes to the local package are automatically synced.

How to specify local modules as npm package dependencies

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