tools-core

The tools-core package exposes helpers for managing modern tools in Meteor, providing modules for npm, log, process management, and so on; and exporting them from a Meteor package rather than being directly tied to the Meteor tool.

These helpers will be useful to integrate a modern bundler like Rspack and a native solution like CapacitorJS.

Scoping source exclusions to replacement entrypoints

Integrations that replace application entrypoints can use setMeteorAppIgnore(patterns, { root: true, entrypoints }) from lib/meteor.js to exclude their original sources only when Meteor builds those replacement modules:

1setMeteorAppIgnore('client/** !client/*.html', {
2  root: true,
3  entrypoints: ['_build/client-meteor.js'],
4});

Other architecture-specific main or test modules keep Meteor's normal source compilation. Use resolved, app-relative module paths. Without entrypoints, the patterns apply to all architectures. root: true matches paths from the app root only, so test/** does not also exclude _build/test/**. Without root, patterns retain their recursive, per-directory behavior. Both scopes append patterns and preserve the last occurrence of each pattern. Root-scoped rules follow .meteorignore and recursive exclusions; within each scope, global rules precede entrypoint-specific rules.

setMeteorAppEntrypoints({ mainModule, testModule }) accepts architecture maps alongside the existing client/server shortcuts. Map entries replace only the specified keys and preserve false values. Integrations can also restrict a development script to selected browser programs with setMeteorAppCustomScriptUrl(url, { archs: ['web.browser'] }); omitting archs keeps the existing behavior of injecting it into every browser program.

Declaring required npm dependencies

Atmosphere packages that need the host app to install (or stay above a minimum version of) one or more npm packages can use the shared engine in lib/deps.js. The engine handles both meteor.autoInstallDeps=true (default) and meteor.autoInstallDeps=false paths, so consumers ship only data. When automatic installation is disabled, the warning includes both the manual install command and the setting to re-enable automatic management.

The engine detects npm, Yarn, and pnpm from the workspace manifest and lockfiles. Installs run from the Meteor app directory so the package manager updates the app's dependencies and the workspace's lockfile. Manual guidance includes both paths and commands for the detected manager; unsupported managers are left for the user to run. Dependencies declared with file:, link:, portal:, or workspace: are checked against their installed version.

1const { ensurePackageDependencies } = require('meteor/tools-core/lib/deps');
2
3await ensurePackageDependencies({
4  packageId: 'my-tool-core',          // stable id, used for dedup
5  packageLabel: 'My Tool',            // shown in logs
6  dependencies: [
7    { name: 'my-tool-runtime', version: '2.0.0', dev: false },
8    { name: 'my-tool-cli',     version: '2.0.0', dev: true },
9  ],
10  docUrl: 'https://docs.meteor.com/about/my-tool#auto-install-deps',
11});

Do not gate the call on hasMeteorAppConfigAutoInstallDeps(). The engine owns that decision, decides whether to install or warn, prints the correct log, and dedups within the process. See packages/rspack/lib/dependencies.js for a reference integration.