package-json-from-dist

Sometimes you want to load the package.json into your
TypeScript program, and it's tempting to just import '../package.json', since that seems to work.

However, this requires tsc to make an entire copy of your
package.json file into the dist folder, which is a problem if
you're using something like
tshy, which uses the
package.json file in dist for another purpose. Even when that
does work, it's asking the module system to do a bunch of extra
fs system calls, just to load a version number or something. (See
this issue.)

This module helps by just finding the package.json file
appropriately, and reading and parsing it in the most normal
fashion.

Caveats

This only works if your code builds into a target folder called
dist, which is in the root of the package. It also requires
that you do not have a folder named node_modules anywhere
within your dev environment, or else it'll get the wrong answers
there. (But, at least, that'll be in dev, so you're pretty likely
to notice.)

If you build to some other location, then you'll need a different
approach. (Feel free to fork this module and make it your own, or
just put the code right inline, there's not much of it.)

USAGE

// src/index.ts
import { findPackageJson, loadPackageJson } from 'package-json-from-dist'

const pj = findPackageJson(import.meta.url)
console.log(`package.json found at ${pj}`)

const pkg = loadPackageJson(import.meta.url)
console.log(`Hello from ${pkg.name}@${pkg.version}`)

If your module is not directly in the ./src folder, then you need
to specify the path that you would expect to find the
package.json when it's not built to the dist folder.

// src/components/something.ts
import { findPackageJson, loadPackageJson } from 'package-json-from-dist'

const pj = findPackageJson(import.meta.url, '../../package.json')
console.log(`package.json found at ${pj}`)

const pkg = loadPackageJson(import.meta.url, '../../package.json')
console.log(`Hello from ${pkg.name}@${pkg.version}`)

When running from CommmonJS, use __filename instead of
import.meta.url.

// src/index.cts
import { findPackageJson, loadPackageJson } from 'package-json-from-dist'

const pj = findPackageJson(__filename)
console.log(`package.json found at ${pj}`)

const pkg = loadPackageJson(__filename)
console.log(`Hello from ${pkg.name}@${pkg.version}`)

Since tshy builds both
CommonJS and ESM by default, you may find that you need a
CommonJS override and some //@ts-ignore magic to make it work.

src/pkg.ts:

import { findPackageJson, loadPackageJson } from 'package-json-from-dist'
//@ts-ignore
export const pkg = loadPackageJson(import.meta.url)
//@ts-ignore
export const pj = findPackageJson(import.meta.url)

src/pkg-cjs.cts:

import { findPackageJson, loadPackageJson } from 'package-json-from-dist'
export const pkg = loadPackageJson(__filename)
export const pj = findPackageJson(__filename)