Support installing plugins directly from git URLs

[taylortom]

Summary

Currently, adapt-cli supports installing plugins from:

1. Bower registry (default) — adapt install adapt-contrib-pageLevelProgress
2. Local paths — adapt install /path/to/plugin
3. Git clone via bower registry lookup (dev mode) — uses --dev flag

There is no way to install a plugin directly from a git URL. This is needed for private repos, forks, or plugins not registered in the bower registry.

Proposed Usage

# Install from HTTPS git URL
adapt install https://github.com/user/adapt-my-plugin.git

# Install a specific branch/tag
adapt install https://github.com/user/adapt-my-plugin.git#v2.0.0
adapt install https://github.com/user/adapt-my-plugin.git#develop

# Update re-clones from the stored git URL
adapt update adapt-my-plugin
adapt update   # includes git-installed plugins

Only HTTPS URLs are supported (not SSH git@... URLs).

Behaviour

• Install: Clones the repo, reads bower.json for metadata, checks framework compatibility. Stores _gitUrl, _gitRef, _wasInstalledFromGitRepo in .bower.json.
• Manifest: adapt.json stores the full git URL (with optional #ref) as the dependency value.
• Update: Re-clones HEAD (default branch), ignoring any originally specified ref. To pin a version, re-install with adapt install url#ref.
• Version checking: Single-version check against the cloned ref's bower.json (same as local-path plugins). No multi-version search across git tags.

[oliverfoster]

We have adapt devinstall for making git clones, when you want to install and actively develop a plugin.

[taylortom]

Bah, how did I miss that.

I'm looking at adding the ability to install AAT plugins via git. Does it fit into the update mechanism at all? Obviously wouldn't be able to do proper version resolution like bower/npm, but we just want something more hands-off than a zip install.

[taylortom]

I've had another look at this, and unless I'm missing something devinstall won't work in its current state for what I need - it looks like it requires bower registration, and won't work when passed repo URLs at all.

Output from running dev install with a public git repo (tested with adapt-devtools which is public and registered - and same error encountered for private/non-registered repos):

cloning framework to /adapt-authoring/cli_test/adaptlearning/adapt_framework         (node:65348) [DEP0187] DeprecationWarning: Passing
  invalid argument types to fs.existsSync is deprecated
  (Use `node --trace-deprecation ...` to show where the warning was created)
    done!
  cloning adapt dependencies...
  <info> Getting plugin info 100% complete
  <info> Finding compatible source versions 100% complete
  <info> Marking installable 100% complete
  <info> There is no compatible version of the following plugins:
  ? question: master [master]
  <info> Installing plugins 100% complete
TypeError [ERR_INVALID_ARG_TYPE]: The "paths[2]" argument must be of type string. Received undefined
      at Object.resolve (node:path:1257:7)
      at Target.install (file:///adapt-authoring/node_modules/adapt-cli/lib/integration/Target.js:163:31)
      at process.processTicksAndRejections (node:internal/process/task_queues:105:5) {
    code: 'ERR_INVALID_ARG_TYPE'
  }

This is a similar error to the one you get if you try to install a plugin name that's not on bower, but with the added ERR_INVALID_ARG_TYPE, which suggests we're still trying to parse the git URL as a local path at some point.