Developing a Preset Locally

A Preset is a plain npm package (see Preset npm Package Convention). For local development, point at the source directory directly — no publish step required.

1. Use a local path dependency instead of publishing

Install the local directory straight into the consuming project:

npm install --save-dev /path/to/jue-preset-team

npm records it as a file: dependency in package.json:

{
  "devDependencies": {
    "jue-preset-team": "file:../jue-preset-team"
  }
}

node_modules/jue-preset-team is a symlink to the source directory, not a copy — edits to the Preset's source take effect immediately; re-run jue apply to see the latest content without re-running npm install.

Install, upgrade, version comparison, publish, and removal are npm/pnpm/yarn's job; Jue does not duplicate that layer. Whichever source a presets entry resolves to is entirely determined by the dependency specifier declared in the consuming project's package.json.

2. Verify

ai.config.js:

export default {
  presets: ["team"]
};

npx jue validate
npx jue apply --adapter claude --dry-run

validate confirms the Preset resolves; apply --dry-run shows the Artifact diff that would be written, without writing it. Drop --dry-run once you confirm the result.

3. Multiple local Presets in a monorepo

If the consuming project and multiple Presets live in the same npm workspaces monorepo (package.json declares "workspaces": ["presets/*"]), a single npm install symlinks every workspace Preset into node_modules automatically — no per-package npm install --save-dev needed.

4. Local overrides remote

Which source a given Preset name resolves to is decided entirely by the specifier declared for it in package.json:

{
  "devDependencies": {
    "jue-preset-team": "file:../jue-preset-team"
  }
}

Swap the specifier for a published version (e.g. "^2.1.0") or a Git reference to switch to a remote source. This is npm's own dependency resolution — a single source of truth. Jue performs no secondary merge between a local and a remote source for the same Preset name.

5. Current limitation

There is no way to self-check a Preset from inside its own directory yet, without a consuming project that references it. Today's jue validate checks the consuming project's ai.config.js, not the Preset itself; setting up the minimal consumer above is the only path today. A jue preset validate <path-or-package> command that skips this step is listed as a planned, not-yet-implemented target shape in Preset Author Commands.