Q about npm linking to a ‘local’ package

I’m just cutting my teeth on my first “real” React app for work, and I think I’m doing something wrong– please let me know!

I’ve created and built/packaged a reusable component “AccountSelector“. The build files are happily existing in ../account-selector/dist. The subdir that account-selector lives in shouldn’t be important.

I haven’t deployed this app to npm or an internal npm server; I want to “just use it” locally in a different React project. Following the npm link instructions, I’ve run npm link in the base account-selector directory.

The separate ReactJS app that I want to reuse AccountSelector in is in a different directory branch, let’s call it ../foobar.

As per the instructions, I’ve run npm link account-selector in the foobar directory, and the link is happily made.

However, what is unhappy is App.js when trying to import the account-selector component: After a bit of trying / testing, I’ve found the only way to successfully import the linked AccountSelector component is:

import AccountSelector from ‘../node_modules/account-selector/dist/index’

I would hope that the linked component should be accessible by

import {AccountSelector} from “account-selector”

but when I do so, my IDE (WebStorm) instantly underlines the word “account-selector” with a “Module is not installed” error.

I’ve linked, re-linked, created the link in the dist directory, and nothing seems to work.

Am I (hopefully!) doing something wrong, or is this “just how it is” when using React with a npm link? Do I need to hack foobar’s package.json file to “help it” discover the account-selector component?

Thanks in advance!