Mod and mod plugins are installed and managed via npm, the Node.js package manager.

Mod 0.4.x requires Node.js version >= 0.8.0.

In order to get started, you'll want to install Mod globally. You may need to use sudo (for OSX, *nix, BSD etc) or run your command shell as Administrator (for Windows) to do this.

npm install -g modjs

This will put the mod command in your system path, allowing it to be run from any directory.

Each time mod is run, it looks for Modfile deeply. Because of this, you can run mod from any subfolder in your project.

If a Modfile is found, mod applies the configuration from your Modfile, and if there is a configuration of plugins, mod will automatically install the uninstlled plugins, if a plugin is your own custom task, mod load it by node's require() system, then executes any tasks you've requested for it to run.

If you don't specify a target or task, but the only defined target or task will run by default.

Installed Mod tasks can be listed by running mod --help but it's usually a good idea to start with the project's documentation.

A typical setup will involve adding only one file to your project: Modfile.

Modfile: This file used to configure tasks and plugins.

The Modfile or Modfile.js file is a valid JavaScript file that belongs in the root directory of your project.

A Modfile is comprised of the following parts:

• The "runner" object
• The plugins configuration
• The tasks configuration
• The targets configuration

In the following Modfile, the [mod-sprite] plugin's sprite task is configured to generate css sprite. When mod is run on the command line, the sprite task will be run by default.

module.exports = {
    // Load the plugin that provides the "sprite" task.
    plugins: {
        sprite: "mod-sprite"
    },

    // Project configuration.
    tasks: {
        sprite: {
            "src": "./css/find.css",                 // required
            "dest": "./dist/css/find.css",              // required
            "destImageRoot": "./sprites/",              // optional relative to  dest path, default "./sprites/"
            "maxSize": 60,                              // optional "kb"
            "margin": 5,                                // optional default 0
            "prefix": "sprite_",                        // optional
            "igts": true                                // optional
        },
        "min" : {
            "css": {
                "src": "./dist/css/*.css",
                "dest": "./dist/css"
            },
            "html": {
                "src": "*.html",
                "dest": "./dist/"
            },
            "js": {
                "src": "./dist/js/*.js",
                "dest": "./dist/js"
            }
        }
    },

    // Target task(s).
    targets: {
        dist: "sprite min"
    }
};

It's so easy to start working with Mod. Because Modfile is a JavaScript file, you're not limited to JSON, can use any valid JS here. You can even programmatically generate the configuration if necessary.

Now that you've seen the whole Modfile, let's look at its component parts.

module.exports = {
    plugins: {
        // Plugin task
        sprite: "mod-sprite",
        // Custom task
        mytask: "./tasks/mytask"
    }
}

module.exports = {
    tasks: {
        pkg: {
            name: "foo"
        },
        min: {
            source: 'src/{{pkg.name}}.js',
            dest: 'build/{{pkg.name}}.min.js'
        }
    }

};

module.exports = {
    targets: {
        dev:  "cat min:js",
        dist: "sprite min"
    }
};

• The Configuring Tasks guide has an in-depth explanation on how to configure tasks, targets, options and files inside the Modfile, along with an explanation of templates, globbing patterns.
• For more information about writing custom tasks or Mod plugins.