git-dependency-manager

A small zsh script for managing dependencies that are git repositories.

After working on projects making use of git repositories as libraries/frameworks for which no proper package manager exist, managing these dependencies felt a bit error-prone. I would often have to take note of what git commit hash my code depended on and move the git HEAD pointer to that commit... then moving it forward for newer projects. This doesn't work very well when collaborating as there is no mechanism for doing this automatically (selecting version numbers per-project) and no consistent path to reference the dependencies across different machines.

So I made little zsh script to do this for me. It's not ideal but it does the job. It depends on too many implementation details of git and commit message practices such as tagging releases but it works, for now.

So if the problem this script tackles is a problem for you as well, give it a shot. It won't touch any part of your system beside a single global directory you choose to keep all dependencies and, optionally, a directory within each of your projects where links to the globally installed repositories are generated.

Features

Disk space efficient: inspired by pnpm, project dependencies are hard links to a global store.
- Automatic cleaning of unused dependencies kept in global store via reference counting of hard links.
Multiple versions of the same dependency can be switched between or used concurrently.
Nothing is installed on your system and no changes are made to your shell environment. Simply include the gdm in your project root and all collaborators can assemble the same dependency configuration by one call to this script.

News

The current version is v1.0beta1 for which one caveat should be known:

With this version, it is recommended that each time resuming work on a project ./gdm conf should be re-run. Normally this won't be need but in cases where two projects may be working off the same dependency in the global store, the files within it make have deviate into different inodes. Generally this would mean more drive space that needed would be used but in some cases, it could be your local version of the dependency could be corrupted.

Just run ./gdm conf to be sure for now. This will be remedied soon!

Installation

cd YOUR/PROJECT/ROOT/
curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Jeff-Russ/git-dependency-manager/main/gdm > ./gdm % chmod 755 ./gdm

That's it. I recommend to not .gitignore this gdm script as others who made clone your project will have it available to set up the same dependency environment you have.

If you find yourself doing this a lot, for different repositories, create a reusable command that aliases the curl command (for zsh terminals):

% echo "\\n"'alias dl-gdm="curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Jeff-Russ/git-dependency-manager/main/gdm > ./gdm % chmod 755 ./gdm"' >> ~/.zshrc

Then, from your project root, run add-gdm and the gdm will be there for ya.

Usage

./gdm help
Usage:
  ./gdm init   # will generate empty configuration file for your project
  ./gdm conf   # will read file and perform configuration.

By default, dependencies are installed (cloned to) ~/gdm_glob_store/ 
with hard links to them in each <project-root>/gdm_modules/

You can choose your own global location for your machine by
modifying your rc file (for example, ~/.zshrc):
  export GDM_GLOB_STORE_PATH="/desired/path/to/directory/"
You can choose your own location within a given probject by modifying the line:
  export GDM_MODULES_DIRNAME="gdm_modules"
in your project's gdm_conf.zsh file.

When you execute with:

./gdm init

a file called gdm_conf.zsh will be placed in your current directory. This file is where you define you dependencies. It's packed with comments on how to to that.

After you set up your gdm_conf.zsh, run the following:

./gdm conf

Afterward, everything will be set up for you! By default, you'll have a gdm_modules/ directory in your project root with your dependencies (you probably should .gitignore this) but you can choose a different name or bypass this entirely (see gdm_conf.zsh comments and output from ./gdm help for more information.).