Bower - How to install jquery.js only and not the whole package?

Solution 1:

You can use bower-installer and an extra "install" section in your bower.json file like:

{
    "name": "test",
    "version": "0.0.0",
    "dependencies": {
        "jquery": "1.11.1",
        "normalize-css": "latest"
    },
    "install" : {
        "path"  : {
            "js": "_js/",
            "css": "_css/"
        }
    }
}

With that "install" section you can specify the install folder.
It than automatically creates the folders - if they're not existing - and installs just the required files like jquery.js or normalize.css to the specified "css" or "js" folder.

Solution 2:

From the jQuery download page:

The jQuery Bower package contains additional files besides the default distribution. In most cases you can ignore these files, however if you wish to download the default release on it's own you can use Bower to install jQuery from one of the above urls instead of the registered package. For example, if you wish to install just the compressed jQuery 2.1.0, you can install just that file with the following command:

bower install http://code.jquery.com/jquery-2.1.0.min.js