By what magic is the binary linked to .bin?

[ronkorving]

package.json contains no "bin" entry, yet I see shellcheck linked inside my node_modules/.bin folder. By what magic is this happening?

I'm not just asking out of curiosity though. In a Docker setup I inherited, the symlink is missing! I don't know if it's shellcheck's fault, but tons of other packages do successfully end up listed. Shellcheck however, doesn't. Any thoughts?

[gunar]

Hi @ronkorving, thanks for your question. It is indeed a bit dark magic-y.

The package.json does contain a "bin" entry—it's just under the directories key instead. However, the shellcheck-stable/shellcheck file is just a placeholder. There's a postinstall script that downloads the actual, most recent stable version of shellcheck and replaces the placeholder with. Perhaps that's where you've been having problems? Your environment will need tar to be available—but then, you should be seeing error messages post-install.

[ronkorving]

Sorry for the late response. I realized I read your reply, but didn't respond.
Appreciate the insight, thanks! :) I'll close this issue now.