@mix Hey, I'm happy to help!

Like @अभिनाश mentioned, this seems to be an issue where everything works great with 2.12.x but breaks with 2.13.x. The reason npm link patchbay-gatherings is working fine is the patchbay-gatherings dependency tree looks like this:

$ npm ls ssb-ref
patchbay-gatherings@3.2.3 /home/christianbundy/src/ssbc/patchbay-gatherings
├─┬ scuttle-gathering@1.3.2
│ ├── ssb-ref@2.12.0 
│ └─┬ ssb-sort@1.1.0
│   └── ssb-ref@2.12.0  deduped
└─┬ ssb-gathering-schema@1.2.1
  ├── ssb-ref@2.12.0  deduped
  └─┬ ssb-schema-definitions@1.1.0
    └── ssb-ref@2.12.0

When you use npm link, it copies the entire directory including node_modules, so patchbay-gatherings is still using ssb-ref@2.12.0, which fixes the issue. We can reproduce the issue in our local patchbay-gatherings by running:

npm install --save-dev ssb-ref@2.13.4

So the new dependency tree, with or without npm link, becomes:

$ npm ls ssb-ref
patchbay-gatherings@3.2.3 /home/christianbundy/src/ssbc/patchbay-gatherings
├─┬ scuttle-gathering@1.3.2
│ ├── ssb-ref@2.13.4  deduped
│ └─┬ ssb-sort@1.1.0
│   └── ssb-ref@2.13.4  deduped
├─┬ ssb-gathering-schema@1.2.1
│ ├── ssb-ref@2.13.4  deduped
│ └─┬ ssb-schema-definitions@1.1.0
│   └── ssb-ref@2.13.4  deduped
└── ssb-ref@2.13.4

Not sure what the issue with ssb-ref is, but if I have some time later today I can pick at it a bit more. Hope this helps!