To better align with the goal of this package, and make it a bit easier to find / use, I've decided to rename it to drfg - Download Release From GitHub.

The idea of this package, is to make downloading / extracting / installing a GitHub repo's latest release a breeze (without creating a new repo, or using Git for that matter). Both in the terminal, and programmatically, if you are into that kind of thing...

npx dzfg <github-username/repo>

As long as the repository is using GitHub's releases feature, this script will work.

If a call to https://api.github.com/repos/{username/repo}/releases/latest returns a tag_name and zipball_url, then the script will download the zipball from zipball_url.

Additionally, if the repo contains a package.json after extraction, npm install will be run automatically, unless disabled. See advanced usage for more.

• Terminal Usage
  • Simple Usage
  • A Little More Advanced
• Installing dzfg Globally
  • Additional Script Names
• Programmatic Usage
  • Advanced Usage
  • Getting Version Info for a Repo
  • Don't Forget to Handle Errors...

npx dzfg <github-repo>

OR

npx dzfg <github-repo> <new-folder-name>

For example, if you wanted to "clone" (download the zipball, and extract it) the repo sails-react-bootstrap-webpack, just do something like:

npx dzfg neonexus/sails-react-bootstrap-webpack

This will download / extract / npm install the repo into a new folder sails-react-bootstrap-webpack. To change where the files get extracted to, add a second parameter to the command:

npx dzfg neonexus/sails-react-bootstrap-webpack my-new-site

This will extract into my-new-site, instead of the repo name.

If the repo contains a package.json in the root, but you don't want to npm install after extraction, just add no-npm:

npx dzfg <github-repo> <no-npm?>

OR

npx dzfg <github-repo> <new-folder> <no-npm?>

You can also provide a specific version to download / extract:

npx dzfg <github-repo> <new-folder> <version?> <no-npm?>

NOTE: When supplying a version, you MUST supply a folder name.

This will download v4.2.3, into the folder my-new-site, and will skip the npm install step:

npx dzfg neonexus/sails-react-bootstrap-webpack my-new-site v4.2.3 no-npm

npm i -g dzfg

You can install dzfg globally and run it directly (if you have your $PATH set correctly). This will save a small amount of time, as npx won't have to download and install, before running dzfg. However, this also means you won't always be using the most up-to-date version of dzfg (GitHub may change their API, security issues may arise, etc.).

To help ensure you are always up-to-date, dzfg will use itself to check if there is an update, and if your current version doesn't match the latest version on GitHub, it will let you know. This does not prevent you from using the version you already have installed, but it will ask you if you want to continue (you can simply hit enter).

Once installed globally, you can use dzfg directly, with one of its few different binary names:

• dzfg
• dl-zip-from-gh
• download-zip-from-gh
• download-zip-from-github
• download-zipball-from-gh
• download-zipball-from-github

Using .then():

const dzfg = require('dzfg');

dzfg.downloadAndExtract('username/my-repo', 'new-folder').then((downloadInfo) => {});

// OR

dzfg.downloadAndExtract({
    repo: 'username/my-repo',
    destinationFolder: 'my-clone'
}).then((downloadInfo) => {});

Using await:

const dzfg = require('dzfg');

const downloadInfo = await dzfg.downloadAndExtract('username/my-repo', 'new-folder');

// OR

const downloadInfo = await dzfg.downloadAndExtract({
    repo: 'username/my-repo',
    destinationFolder: 'my-clone'
});

downloadInfo will look something like:

{
    version: 'v1.0.1',
    downloadTime: '714.82 ms',
    extractionTime: '55.17 ms',
    installationTime: '2.75 s',
    totalTime: '3.61 s',
    zipballSize: '45.11 KiB',
    extractedSize: '146.73 KiB',
    installedSize: '19.45 MiB'
}

const dzfg = require('dzfg');

// Parameters are: destination-folder, repo, version, skipNpmInstall
const downloadInfo = await dzfg.downloadAndExtract('username/my-repo', 'new-folder', 'v1.0.1', true);

// OR
const downloadInfo = await dzfg.downloadAndExtract({
    repo: 'username/my-repo',
    version: 'v1.0.1',
    skipInstall: true,
    destinationFolder: 'my-clone'
});

const dzfg = require('dzfg');

const latestVersionInfo = await dzfg.getVersionInfo('username/my-repo');

// OR

dzfg.getVersionInfo('username/my-repo').then((latestVersionInfo) => {
    // Do stuff with the info...
});

latestVersionInfo will look something like:

{
    name: 'v1.0.1 (2023-10-01)',
    description: 'The version description body. This will likely contain markdown.',
    version: 'v1.0.1',
    isDraft: false,
    isPrerelease: false,
    createdAt: '2023-10-01T04:19:00Z',
    publishedAt: '2023-10-01T04:19:00Z',

    // `userSite` is the HTML URL for human use:
    userSite: 'https://github.com/{username/repo}/releases/tag/v1.0.1',

    // `zipball` is the URL dzfg will use internally to download the repo:
    zipball: 'https://api.github.com/repos/{username/repo}/zipball/v1.0.1'
}

Get info for a specific version:

const dzfg = require('dzfg');

const latestVersionInfo = await dzfg.getVersionInfo('username/my-repo', 'v1.0.1');

const dzfg = require('dzfg');

dzfg.downloadAndExtract('username/my-repo', 'new-folder')
    .then((successMessage) => {})
    .catch((e) => {});

dzfg.getVersionInfo('username/my-repo')
    .then((latestVersionInfo) => {})
    .catch((e) => {});

// OR

try {
    const downloadInfo = await dzfg.downloadAndExtract('username/my-repo', 'new-folder');
} catch (e) {
    // Display the error...
}

try {
    const latestVersionInfo = await dzfg.getVersionInfo('username/my-repo');
} catch (e) {
    // Display the error...
}