Hunting for Gems: How Ruby's package management system evolved 2 years ago
You have been able to do that for a few years now, e.g.: `npm i https://github.com/user_name/node_project_name`
...or with `npm i git+ssh:...`, and npm will git clone it locally, as long as it has a `package.json`
You can install a certain commit, or even from a Gist!