This guide will walk you through how to use private packages on Altitude Platform.

Setup

Suppose you have an application you wish to deploy on altitude platform but you want to use a private package that is on Github Packages. In your repo you will have a package.json and .npmrc

package.json

{
  "name": "my-app",
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "dependencies": {
    "@yourOrg/ui-components": "^1.5.2"
  }
}

.npmrc

@yourOrg:registry=https://npm.pkg.github.com

The .npmrc file needs to be in updated with the correct credentials in order to make use the dependency in the package.json. We can make use of the preBuildCommand in the altitude.yaml which will trigger a script to add the correct credentials to the .npmrc before the build step.

Create prebuild.js

This script extracts the environment variables from the .env file available during the build step, more details here. It should be in the same directory as your altitude.yaml file.

import fs from "node:fs";

// Function to read environment variables from .env file.
const getEnvVariables = () => {
  try {
    const env = fs.readFileSync(".env", "utf-8").split("\n");

    return env.reduce((acc, line) => {
      const equalIndex = line.indexOf("=");
      if (equalIndex === -1) {
        return acc;
      }

      const variable = line.substring(0, equalIndex).trim();
      const value = line.substring(equalIndex + 1).trim();

      return { ...acc, [variable]: value };
    }, {});
  } catch (e) {
    console.log("Error getting environment variables");
    throw e;
  }
};

const vars = getEnvVariables();

//looks for the environment varaible and, if it exists, adds it to the .npmrc
const token = vars?.NPM_PKG_TOKEN?.trim();
if (token) {
  const existingToken = fs.readFileSync(".npmrc", "utf-8");
  const output = `//npm.pkg.github.com/:_authToken=${token}\n`;
  const newNPMRc = `${existingToken}\n${output}`;
  fs.writeFileSync(".npmrc", newNPMRc);
}

When this script is run your .npmrc file will look like

@yourOrg:registry=https://npm.pkg.github.com
//npm.pkg.github.com/:_authToken=YOUR_TOKEN

Add prebuild command to altitude.yaml

Then update your build section for private packages:

altitude.yaml

version: v2.4
provider: cloudflare
routes:
  - pathPrefix: /
    name: guide
    type: static
    directory: .
    build:
      preBuildCommand: node prebuild.js
      command: build
      output:
        directory: dist

Next time you deploy, the prebuild script will run before your build and your private package will install successfully.

• See also: Configuration reference