allow programmatic usage

[bmeck]

Too much stuff gets junked with require('./config'), checking cwd(), argv, and reading current host state.

blocking #87 #88 #89

[bcoe]

It might be worth looking at this:

https://github.com/npm/ndm/blob/master/lib/cli-base.js

I've tried to abstract the command-line bits of ndm away from the core-API itself. cli-base is used by both the installer plugin (which lets other modules use ndm's api), and the CLI client.

[bmeck]

its a start, seems like require is still hitting a shared config file thoughout with require('./lib/config') which in turn is hitting a lot of environmental assumptions that it is a cli like grabbing cwd() inside the config file.

[bcoe]

Interesting, I guess you're in a position where you'd like to inject you own configuration using an alternative approach.

Could we perhaps abstract the configuration bit into a base-class, and have the existing approach be the default?

[bmeck]

@bcoe that is correct, we are running a service installer / manager rather than one off installations. As such spawning entire processes is less than ideal. As long as we can disable the default (re: context based) configuration and pass our own in instead it looks like we can move forward.