Software distributed via npm?

Benny Siegert <[email protected]> Sun, 12 Apr 2026 15:42:29 +0000 (UTC)
Newsgroups gmane.os.netbsd.devel.packages
Message-ID <[email protected]>
Hi!

I am using a few command-line tools that are meant to be installed with 
"npm install". If I use "npm install -g", the tool is installed into 
/usr/pkg/bin, without being tracked by the pkgsrc infrastructure. This 
seems bad.

I noticed that the installation instructions for Gemini CLI tell you to 
use npm install, or (on Mac) install from MacPorts or Homebrew. These 
ports trees evidently have handling for this kind of software. As far as I 
am aware, pkgsrc does not.

In practice, I think that this could work roughly like this:

- run npm install with some sort of environment setup so that it installs 
into ${DESTDIR}${PREFIX}
- symlink binaries into bin
- use a dynamic PLIST covering all the installed files

What is not clear to me is how to match what npm does to pkgsrc's 
definition of fetch / build / install phases.

Any ideas? Is there prior art in pkgsrc?

-- 
Benny