npm package.json OS specific dependency

There's a possible good way of doing this, depending on your setup.

npm package.json supports an os key, and also optionalDependencies

os can be used to specify which OS a module can be installed on. optionalDependencies are module dependencies that if they cannot be installed, npm skips them and continues installing.

In this way you can have your module have an optional dependency for each OS, and only the one which works will be loaded/installed ^.^

I think the short answer is no. I can think of a couple of workarounds though - the simplest is to just add everything to package.json reguardless of OS, and then require() the correct one at runtime.

If that doesn't work fo you, you might be able to use an install script to get the result you're going for - https://npmjs.org/doc/scripts.html

I haven't tested this but I think it would work:

Add something like this to your package.json:

,"scripts": {
  "install": "node install_dependencies.js"
}

And then add a install_dependencies.js file that checks the OS and runs the appropriate npm install ... commands.

There's also the bindings-shyp module: https://www.npmjs.org/package/bindings-shyp

Helper module for loading your native module's .node file

This is a helper module for authors of Node.js native addon modules. It is basically the "swiss army knife" of require()ing your native module's .node file.

Throughout the course of Node's native addon history, addons have ended up being compiled in a variety of different places, depending on which build tool and which version of node was used. To make matters worse, now the gyp build tool can produce either a Release or Debug build, each being built into different locations.

This module checks all the possible locations that a native addon would be built at, and returns the first one that loads successfully.