Depend on a branch or tag using a git URL in a package.json?

From the npm docs, using a git URL:

git://github.com/<user>/<project>.git#<branch>

git://github.com/<user>/<project>.git#feature\/<branch>

As of NPM version 1.1.65, you can use a shorten github URL:

<user>/<project>#<branch>

UPDATE 2022

Don't use git:// protocol for GitHub, as it is not supported

npm ERR!   The unauthenticated git protocol on port 9418 is no longer supported.
npm ERR! Please see https://github.blog/2021-09-01-improving-git-protocol-security-github/ for more information.

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per @dantheta's comment:

As of npm 1.1.65, Github URL can be more concise user/project. npmjs.org/doc/files/package.json.html You can attach the branch like user/project#branch

So

"babel-eslint": "babel/babel-eslint",

Or for tag v1.12.0 on jscs:

"jscs": "jscs-dev/node-jscs#v1.12.0",

Note, if you use npm --save, you'll get the longer git

From https://docs.npmjs.com/cli/v6/configuring-npm/package-json#git-urls-as-dependencies

Git URLs as Dependencies Git urls are of the form: git+ssh://git@github.com:npm/cli.git#v1.0.27 git+ssh://git@github.com:npm/cli#semver:^5.0 git+https://isaacs@github.com/npm/cli.git git://github.com/npm/cli.git#v1.0.27

If # is provided, it will be used to clone exactly that commit. If > the commit-ish has the format #semver:, can be any valid semver range or exact version, and npm will look for any tags or refs matching that range in the remote repository, much as it would for a registry dependency. If neither # or #semver: is specified, then master is used.

GitHub URLs As of version 1.1.65, you can refer to GitHub urls as just "foo": "user/foo-project". Just as with git URLs, a commit-ish suffix can be included. For example: { "name": "foo", "version": "0.0.0", "dependencies": { "express": "expressjs/express", "mocha": "mochajs/mocha#4727d357ea", "module": "user/repo#feature\/branch" } }```

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If you want to use devel or feature branch, or you haven’t published a certain package to the NPM registry, or you can’t because it’s a private module, then you can point to a git:// URI instead of a version number in your package.json:

"dependencies": {
   "public": "git://github.com/user/repo.git#ref",
   "private": "git+ssh://git@github.com:user/repo.git#ref"
}

The #ref portion is optional, and it can be a branch (like master), tag (like 0.0.1) or a partial or full commit id.

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On latest version of NPM you can just do:

npm install gitAuthor/gitRepo#tag

If the repo is a valid NPM package it will be auto-aliased in package.json as:

{ "NPMPackageName": "gitAuthor/gitRepo#tag" }

If you could add this to @justingordon 's answer there is no need for manual aliasing now !

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If it helps anyone, I tried everything above (https w/token mode) - and still nothing was working. I got no errors, but nothing would be installed in node_modules or package_lock.json. If I changed the token or any letter in the repo name or user name, etc. - I'd get an error. So I knew I had the right token and repo name.

I finally realized it's because the name of the dependency I had in my package.json didn't match the name in the package.json of the repo I was trying to pull. Even npm install --verbose doesn't say there's any problem. It just seems to ignore the dependency w/o error.

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