Add a dependency during projectless jack-in

[kxygk]

When I launch a REPL without a project, I'd like to automatically add org.clojure/tools.deps.alpha so I can use add-libs and add dependencies dynamically

What I've done is add this to ~/.clojure/deps.edn :

 :deps { org.clojure/tools.deps.alpha {:git/url "https://github.com/clojure/tools.deps.alpha.git"
                                       :sha "241cd24c35ba770aea4773ea161d45276e5d3a73"}}

And this works!

But it's probably better to turn this off somehow if I'm launching CIDER in a project with it's own deps.edn. I'm just not clear on how to set a :deps only for non-project CIDER sessions.

Maybe it all looks the same from the Clojure side and I need to modify something on the CIDER side - but I haven't been able to find the relevant bit in the documentation (or poking around with C-h v)

[lverns]

The easiest way to do this is to put that dependency under an alias.

So ~/.clojure/deps.edn might look something like

{:aliases {:projectless {:extra-deps { org.clojure/tools.deps.alpha {:git/url "https://github.com/clojure/tools.deps.alpha.git"
                                                                     :sha "241cd24c35ba770aea4773ea161d45276e5d3a73"}}}}}

Then you can include that alias when launching your repl: -A:projectless.

If you're connecting via cider-jack-in, press C-u before running cider-jack-in, so that you can add -A:projectless to the command.

This isn't the automatic detection you asked for, but it does allow you to manually choose at launch time. Also see the docs for the cider-clojure-cli-global-options if you want the alias to be used by default.