I've created this module for CraftCMS 2, because I found it rather annoying to download a plugins .zip file, extract it and copy to my project.

This module simplifies the process, so that you only need to type yarn craft-plugin-downloader install <github repo url> in your terminal and it will download the plugin, extract it and copy it to the defined CraftCMS plugin folder.

If you want a different version you could provide the URL to the .zip File. For Example to download v1 of the Craft Element API Plugin you could use

yarn craft-plugin-downloader install https://github.com/craftcms/element-api/archive/v1.zip

If you don't use yarn, please see the explanation further down.

with yarn

yarn add craft-plugin-downloader --dev

with npm

npm install craft-plugin-downloader --dev

Add this to your package.json

"craftPluginDownloader": {
    "plugins": [],
    "tmpFolder": "tmp/folder/for/the/download/",
    "pluginPath": "path/to/your/craft/plugins/folder/"
}

• plugins: All plugin URLs installed via this module are added to this array
• tmpFolder: Path to a temporary folder which holds the downlowed files
• pluginPath: Path to you CraftCMS plugin folder

pluginPath and tmpFolder are relative to your project root.

The script provides three commands.

• install <URL> Install a CraftCMS plugin from a Github URL
• update Update all plugins listed in the "plugins" array within your package.json
• all Install all plugins listed in the "plugins" array within your package.json

For easier use, you can add these commands in the scripts part of your package.json.

"scripts": {
    "installPlugin": "craft-plugin-downloader install",
    "updatePlugins": "craft-plugin-downloader update",
    "installAllPlugins": "craft-plugin-downloader all"
}

Then use them like this with npm

npm run installPlugin <URL to Github repo>

with yarn

yarn installPlugin <URL to Github repo>

Sometimes there is a problem with node-progress and you get an error like this

RangeError: Invalid array length
    at ProgressBar.render (/project/node_modules/craft-plugin-downloader/node_modules/progress/lib/node-progress.js:155:14)
    at ontimeout (timers.js:469:11)
    at tryOnTimeout (timers.js:304:5)
    at Timer.listOnTimeout (timers.js:264:5)
error Command failed with exit code 1.

If this error occurs please just repeat the command.