npm install private github repositories by dependency in package.json

Try this:

"dependencies" : {
  "name1" : "git://github.com/user/project.git#commit-ish",
  "name2" : "git://github.com/user/project.git#commit-ish"
}

You could also try this, where visionmedia/express is name/repo:

"dependencies" : {
   "express" : "visionmedia/express"
}

Or (if the npm package module exists):

"dependencies" : {
  "name": "*"
}

Taken from NPM docs

The following worked just fine in all scenarios i needed :

"dependencies": {
"GitRepo": "git+https://<token-from-github>:[email protected]/<user>/<GitRepo>.git"
}

For those of you who came here for public directories, from the npm docs: https://docs.npmjs.com/files/package.json#git-urls-as-dependencies

Git URLs as Dependencies

Git urls can be of the form:

git://github.com/user/project.git#commit-ish
git+ssh://user@hostname:project.git#commit-ish
git+ssh://user@hostname/project.git#commit-ish
git+http://user@hostname/project/blah.git#commit-ish
git+https://user@hostname/project/blah.git#commit-ish

The commit-ish can be any tag, sha, or branch which can be supplied as an argument to git checkout. The default is master.