Remote elm-pages Scripts

You can share elm-pages scripts hosted in GitHub Repos or Gists, and run them locally with a single command.

npx elm-pages@latest run https://github.com/dillonkearns/elm-pages-starter/blob/master/script/src/Stars.elm



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Notice that the URL we pass in contains all the information to point to a specific elm-pages script module. And you can even open that URL in your browser and see the file (and the script folder that module is a part of) that you are executing: https://github.com/dillonkearns/elm-pages-starter/blob/master/script/src/Stars.elm.

Several formats are supported for referring to a remote script to run. The most intuitive way is to use formats that correspond to the URL of a raw file on GitHub as we did above. When you do this, it will find the nearest elm.json to that file automatically, and execute the elm-pages script module that you specify.

You can also specify a specific commit hash or branch name in the URL. Let's execute the Stars.elm script from the dillonkearns/elm-pages-starter at a specific commit.

Because we're locking in a specific commit, let's also specify the version of elm-pages to use that corresponds with the elm-pages Elm package used in the script folder's elm.json at that commit (otherwise it would give an error telling us they are incompatible).

npx elm-pages@3.0.12 run https://github.com/dillonkearns/elm-pages-starter/blob/4bc22294053279418e37fae64a64125d6d116ded/script/src/Stars.elm

Supported formats for remote scripts#

Here is a list of all the supported formats for executing a remote script from a GitHub repo:

  • https://github.com/dillonkearns/elm-pages-starter/blob/master/script/src/Stars.elm
  • https://github.com/dillonkearns/elm-pages-starter/blob/4bc22294053279418e37fae64a64125d6d116ded/script/src/Stars.elm
  • https://raw.githubusercontent.com/dillonkearns/elm-pages-starter/master/script/src/Stars.elm
  • https://raw.githubusercontent.com/dillonkearns/elm-pages-starter/blob/4bc22294053279418e37fae64a64125d6d116ded/script/src/Stars.elm
  • github:dillonkearns/elm-pages-starter:script/src/Stars.elm

Running a remote script from a GitHub Gist:#

You can also run a script from a GitHub Gist by passing in the URL to the gist. This is often a faster and easier way to create and share a simple script so it's a convenient method.

It will use the elm.json file for the script's dependencies, and execute Main.elm as the entrypoint script file. You can also import any other Elm modules into your Main.elm file. Instead of the convention src folder as the main entry of the elm.json source-directories, these Gists use "." (the top-level folder) as the source-directory because Gists are flat and have no folder structure.

Similar to the approach with GitHub repos, you specify a Gist URL which you could also open in your browser.

For example, you can look at this code in your browser: https://gist.github.com/dillonkearns/4f050018784b25246729a82fc9907543. And you can execute it by passing it to elm-pages run:

npx elm-pages@3.0.12 run https://gist.github.com/dillonkearns/4f050018784b25246729a82fc9907543

You can specify an entrypoint file to execute from a Gist by linking to a raw file in a Gist directly like so:

https://gist.githubusercontent.com/dillonkearns/4f050018784b25246729a82fc9907543/raw/898c6963b87b37d026f162f5758ad7a23825cd64/Main.elm

npx elm-pages@3.0.12 run https://gist.githubusercontent.com/dillonkearns/4f050018784b25246729a82fc9907543/raw/898c6963b87b37d026f162f5758ad7a23825cd64/Main.elm

You can use this to either explicitly point to the default entrypoint Main.elm, or to execute a different entrypoint script.