unscript

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Run npm scripts using automatically shortened script names

unscript [options] [query]

What is unscript?

Unscript lets you query and run npm scripts from a list of shorthands. These shorthands are generated from the names of the scripts in your package.json. Unscript creates shorthands by combining the first letter of each word separated by a delimiter (: by default).

For example:

• dev would be shortened to d.
• build:dev would be shortened to bd.
• lint:watch:dev would be shortened to lwd.

If there are at least 2 identical shorthands then a prompt will appear to ask which of the results should be run.

For example:

• build:dev would be shortened to bd.
• build:deploy would also be shortened to bd.

If no query is passed then a list of all scripts in the package.json will be displayed.

Why was this made?

There are many existing tools on npm that can run javascript files easily as a drop-in replacement for package.json scripts. Although these are helpful utilities I found that I wanted to create many small package.json scripts that I wouldn't need a full javascript file for. Unscript was created out of my own personal desire to quick run npm scripts using automatically generated shortened names.

Options

option	default	description
-p, --path	"."	Path to folder containing package.json.
-d, --delimiter	":"	Character to separate words by.
-a, --auto	false	Run the selected script without confirmation.
-s, --scripts	false	Display scripts in found package.json.

Installation

Unscript can be used by installing it globally

npm i -g unscript

or by using using npx:

npx unscript lw

to save time writing that out it is recommended to alias the command to a shorter name:

# .bashrc .zshrc ...etc
alias un='npx unscript'

Usage

Basic usage

In this case the dev script is run because dev is the only script that was automatically shortened to d.

unscript d

Handling multiple scripts with the same generated shorthands

When multiple scripts have the same generated shorthand then a prompt will appear to ask which of the results should be run.

Run the selected script without prompting

Using the -a (auto) option will run the selected script without prompting for confirmation if there is only one script matching the shorthand query.