npm install from Git in a specific version

The accepted answer did not work for me. Here's what I'm doing to pull a package from github:

npm install --save "git://github.com/username/package.git#commit"

Or adding it manually on package.json:

"dependencies": {
  "package": "git://github.com/username/package.git#commit"
}

A dependency has to be available from the registry to be installed just by specifying a version descriptor.

You can certainly create and use your own registry instead of registry.npmjs.org if your projects shouldn't be shared publicly.

But, if it's not in a registry, it'll have to be referenced by URL or Git URL. To specify a version with a Git URL, include an appropriate <commit-ish>, such as a tag, at the end as a URL fragment.

Example, for a tag named 0.3.1:

"dependencies": {
  "myprivatemodule": "[email protected]:...#0.3.1"
}

Note: The above snippet shows the base URL the same as it was posted in the question.

The snipped portion (...) should be filled in:

"myprivatemodule": "[email protected]:{owner}/{project}.git#0.3.1"

And, a different address format will be needed when SSH access isn't available:

"myprivatemodule": "git://github.com/{owner}/{project}.git#0.3.1"

Depending on your OS, you may also be able to link to the dependency in another folder where you have it cloned from Github.

If by version you mean a tag or a release, then github provides download links for those. For example, if I want to install fetch version 0.3.2 (it is not available on npm), then I add to my package.json under dependencies:

"fetch": "https://github.com/github/fetch/archive/v0.3.2.tar.gz",

The only disadvantage when compared with the commit hash approach is that a hash is guaranteed not to represent changed code, whereas a tag could be replaced. Thankfully this rarely happens.

Update:

These days the approach I use is the compact notation for a GitHub served dependency:

"dependencies": {
  "package": "github:username/package#commit"
}

Where commit can be anything commitish, like a tag. In the case of GitHub you can even drop the initial github: since it's the default.