[addandsubtract]

This is great and all, but when Heroku relies on the main npm registry to be up (when it's not) you're screwed.

[twalling]

Heroku customers can always clone the nodejs buildpack and simply point the npm registry at another mirror.

[nfriedly]

I've started to always check in my node_modules directory. Heroku automatically runs `npm rebuild` in that case, so native modules always work. I've found it to be both faster and more reliable.