Is there a better way to install the Forge CLI?

Forge Forge Platform and Tools
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1

This topic is not meant to have a definitive solution.

In similar vein to my blog about my own dev configuration management techniques, I’ve had some slight frustration with the documented & recommended method for installing the Forge CLI. It’s a side effect of how node version managers work with a default npm configuration that installs global packages into the specific node version. As a consequence, I end up with a lot of Forge CLIs installed, each of which wants to nag me to update it to the latest.

My solution

Setup
mkdir ~/npm-global
cd ~/npm-global
npm init --yes
npm install @forge/cli@latest

Then I modify the package.json to “unpin” the dependency

{
  "dependencies": {
    "@forge/cli": "*"
  }
}
Profile

For my zsh-based setup, I configure the path in .zshrc:

NPM_GLOBAL="$HOME/npm-global"
if [[ -d "$NPM_GLOBAL/node_modules/.bin" ]]; then
    export PATH="$NPM_GLOBAL/node_modules/.bin:$PATH"
fi

Make sure to source the config or restart the shell.

Maintenance

Now, when I get those messages from Forge CLI, I run these commands:

cd ~/npm-global
npm outdated
npm update

To streamline, the outdated option can be skipped but I prefer to know what I’m about to change.

Better ideas?

If it isn’t obvious, this is a bit more general than just for Forge CLI. I can do a “global” install of any npm package this way.

But I do wonder if any Node experts who know a better way?

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