Require application module. A build module encouragement tool as a step before your module becomes a full npm package

Node is great and having functional units of code in modules that can be pulled in via require() is really nice. However, during the time when your application code is being built, accessing your lovely little modules isn't very clean, ex: var mymodule = require('./somepath/mymodule'). More importantly there's the overhead in setting up the repo, npm package, etc; when, you really need to get a project out the door. What if you could build you applicaton and then come back and then put all those nifty nuggets of functionality into formal packages and easily switch to code to using the newly packaged versions?

Enter acquire.js

npm install acquire.js --save

Put your modules in the app_modules folder, in the same folder as your node_modules. Ex:

app_modules/
  nifty.js
  other/
    index.js
  profound/
    index.js
    package.json
    node_modules/
node_modules/

Then require('acquire.js') and use it to get your application module.

var acquire = require('acquire.js');
var mynifty = acquire('nifty') // nifty.js or nifty/index.js or as defined in nifty/package.json
var myother = acquire('other')

Later when you've packaged up your functionality and published it via npm publish and npm install nifty --save to add the package to your applcation. You simple change the call to acquire('nifty') to require('nifty')

var acquire = require('acquire.js');
var mynifty = acquire('nifty') // nifty is now a formal package
var myother = acquire('other')

If you prefer another path for your application modules other than app_modules you can set it via the second parameter. Once passed, the default will remain changed until you change it again.

Example with your modules in other_path_modules:

other_path_modules/
  nifty.js
  other/
    index.js
  profound/
    index.js
    package.json
    node_modules/
node_modules/

var acquire = require('acquire.js');
var mynifty = acquire('nifty', 'other_path_modules') // change the default path on first use
var myother = acquire('other')

If you want to easily access data in your bower.json, component.json, config.json or package.json files, you can simple acquire and then use them.

var acquire = require('acquire.js');
var myPack  = acquire('package')
console.log(myPack.name, myPack.version) // nifty 0.1.4