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When i want to work on one of my existing (node/grunt based) projects, i always do the same:

• I open the terminal
• navigate to my project
• open the project in my code-editor from commandline per subl .
• open the folder in finder from commandline per open .
• start server and watch processes by grunt
• And then i open my favorit todo-management-tool (trello) in my browser and navigate to the »board« with the specific project.

It was the last step in the list that always felt inconsistent. I want to open the page with bugs/issues/todos from the commandline. So i wrote a little script for that.

But first things first...

In a package.json is a field called bugs, which has a defined url. If you‘re in a git(hub) project and you initially generate your package.json by npm init, it will automatically fill the bugs.url with the url of githubs issue-tracker like this:

...
"bugs": {
    "url": "https://github.com/[User]/[Project]/issues"
},
...

I wrote a little node.js-script, which opens the bugs-url, when i type bugs in my terminal. If there is no bugs-url defined, it will ask me for a url and adds it to the package.json.

The script is located in [my bin folder]/bugs. Now i can set up my trello-board-url in the package.json and i’m happy.

Here is the script:

#! /usr/bin/env node

try {
  var filename = process.cwd()+'/package.json'
} catch (err) {
  console.error("--------------------------------------");
  console.error("---- Do you have a package.json?  ----");
  console.error("--------------------------------------");
}

function addBugsUrl() {
  console.error("--------------------------------------");
  console.error("Couldn‘t find the bugs url for "+pkg.name);
  console.error("--------------------------------------");

  var prompt = require('prompt');
  prompt.start();
  prompt.get(['bugs_url'], function (err, result) {
    pkg.bugs = {};
    pkg.bugs.url = result.bugs_url;
    require('fs').writeFileSync(filename, JSON.stringify(pkg, null, 2));
  });
}

function openBugsUrlInBrowser() {
  require('child_process').spawn('open', [pkg.bugs.url])
}

var pkg = JSON.parse(JSON.stringify(require(filename)));
if ( pkg.bugs && pkg.bugs.url ) {
  openBugsUrlInBrowser();
} else {
  addBugsUrl()
}

Any questions? Ask.