patch-package

What is patch-package?

The patch-package npm package allows users to keep track of modifications to node_modules. It is useful when a user needs to make a quick fix to a node module and wants to persist this change across installs without waiting for the upstream fix. It lets you keep your workarounds in version control.

What are patch-package's main functionalities?

Creating Patches

This command is used to create a patch file for the npm package 'some-package'. After making changes to the node module, running this command will generate a patch file in a directory that can be committed to version control.

npx patch-package some-package

Applying Patches

This command applies all patches from the patches directory. It is typically used in the postinstall script in package.json to ensure that patches are applied after every npm install.

npx patch-package

Applying Specific Patch

This command applies a patch to a specific package. It is useful when you want to apply a patch to 'some-package' without applying all available patches.

npx patch-package some-package

Other packages similar to patch-package

shrinkwrap

Shrinkwrap is a tool for locking down the versions of npm packages installed. It is similar to patch-package in that it helps maintain consistency in dependencies, but it does not allow for modifications to the package code itself.

README

patch-package lets app authors instantly make and keep small necessary fixes to npm dependencies. It's a vital band-aid for those of us living on the bleeding edge.

# fix a bug in one of your deps
vim node_modules/some-package/brokenFile.js

# run patch-package to create a .patch file
patch-package some-package

# commit the patch file to share the fix with your team
git add patches/some-package+3.14.15.patch
git commit -m "fix brokenFile.js in some-package"

Patches created by patch-package are automatically and gracefully applied when you use npm(>=5) or yarn.

No more waiting around for pull requests to be merged and published. No more forking repos and using git:// links just to fix that one tiny thing that's preventing your app from working.

Set-up

You'll need patch-package. If you use yarn, you might like to have a local copy of that too.

yarn add --dev patch-package

In package.json

"scripts": {
  "prepare": "patch-package"
}

Usage

Making patches

First make changes to the files of a particular package in your node_modules folder, then run

yarn patch-package package-name

or use npx (included with npm > 5.2)

npx patch-package package-name

where package-name matches the name of the package you made changes to.

If this is the first time you've used patch-package, it will create a folder called patches in the root dir of your app. Inside will be a file called package-name+0.44.0.patch or something, which is a diff between normal old package-name and your fixed version. Commit this to share the fix with your team.

Options

• --use-yarn

  By default, patch-package checks whether you use npm or yarn based on which lockfile you have. If you have both, it uses npm by default. Set this option to override that default and always use yarn.

• --exclude <regexp>

  Ignore paths matching the regexp when creating patch files. Paths are relative to the root dir of the package to be patched.

• --include <regexp>

  Only consider paths matching the regexp when creating patch files. Paths are relative to the root dir of the package to be patched.

• --case-sensitive-path-filtering

  Make regexps used in --include or --exclude filters case-sensitive.

Updating patches

Use exactly the same process as for making patches in the first place, i.e. make more changes, run patch-package, commit the changes to the patch file.

Applying patches

Patches are applied automatically by the prepare npm/yarn hook if you followed the set-up guide above. For manual use, run patch-package without arguments to apply all patches in your project. patch-package cannot apply individual packages just yet, but you can use git, of course

git apply --ignore-whitespace patches/package-name+0.44.2.patch

Benefits of patching over forking

• Sometimes forks need extra build steps, e.g. with react-native for Android. Forget that noise.
• Get told in big red letters when the dependency changed and you need to check that your fix is still valid.
• Keep your patches colocated with the code that depends on them.
• Patches can be reviewed as part of your normal review process, forks probably can't

When to fork instead

• The change is too consequential to be developed in situ.
• The change would be useful to other people as-is.
• You can afford to make a proper PR to upstream.

Isn't this dangerous?

Nah. The technique is quite robust. Here are some things to keep in mind though:

• It's easy to forget to run yarn or npm when switching between branches that do and don't have patch files.
• Long lived patches can be costly to maintain if they affect an area of code that is updated regularly and you want to update the package regularly too.
• Big semantic changes can be hard to review. Keep them small and obvious or add plenty of comments.
• Changes can also impact the behaviour of other untouched packages. It's normally obvious when this will happen, and often desired, but be careful nonetheless.

Why patch Yarn?

Most times when you do a yarn, yarn add, yarn remove, or yarn install (which is the same as just yarn) Yarn will completely replace the contents of your node_modules with freshly unpackaged modules. patch-package uses the prepare hook to modify these fresh modules, so that they behave well according to your will.

Plain unpatched Yarn only runs the prepare hook after yarn and yarn add, but not after yarn remove. patch-package benefits from a local copy of yarn so that it can patch it to run the prepare hook after yarn remove and thus make sure that your node_modules is always* patched and ready to go. It's a simple one-line change

All that you need to do to enable this patch is install a project-local copy of yarn:

yarn add --dev yarn

And then run

which yarn

The output should be ./node_modules/.bin/yarn. If not, make sure ./node_modules/.bin/ is at the start of your PATH environment variable.

Then update package.json:

 "scripts": {
-  "prepare": "patch-package"
+  "prepare": "patch-package --patch-yarn"
 }

* If you ever run yarn remove from a non-root project directory, things might break. But just run yarn again to restore order.

License

MIT

Changelog

3.5.2

• Update README