node.js - npm install from Git in a specific version

Question

Assumed that I have written a module for Node.js which I would like to keep private. I know that I can (should) add the line:

"private": "true"

to the package.json file, and I also know that I can npm install this module using a file system path or a link to a git repository, including GitHub.

I also know that I can put such a file system path or a link to a git repo into package.json, so that the dependencies part may look somewhat like this:

"dependencies": {
  "myprivatemodule": "[email protected]:..."
}

What I now want is not to link to the latest version, but to a specific one. The only possibility I know of is to link to a specific commit using its ID. But this is way less readable and worse maintainable than using a version number such as 0.3.1.

So my question is: Is it possible to specify such a version number anyway and make npm search the git repository for the latest commit that includes this version?

If not, how do you resolve this issue in your projects? Do you live with commit IDs or is there a better solution to this?

Answer 1

The accepted answer did not work for me. Here's what I'm doing to pull a package from github:

npm install --save "git://github.com/username/package.git#commit"

Or adding it manually on package.json:

"dependencies": {
  "package": "git://github.com/username/package.git#commit"
}