Few npm
commands I found very useful during development.
Command | Description |
npm -v | show current npm version installed |
npm init | inizialize npm project into the current folder, creates package.json |
npm --help | show npm help manual page |
npm list | show a tree of every package found in the current folder |
npm list -g | same as above ^^, but search also in global packages |
npm list -g --depth=0 | same as above ^^, but do not show every package’s dependencies |
npm list [package name] | show a tree of every instance found in the current folder of that specific package |
npm install | install all packages in package.json |
npm install [package name] | install a package as dependency* |
npm install [package name] --save | install a package as dependency (same as above) |
npm install [package name] --save-dev | install a package as dev dependency |
npm install --save username/repo#branch-name-or-commit-or-tag | install package from GitHub repository |
npm uninstall [package name] | uninstall a package |
npm update | update top level packages |
npm update --depth [number of levels] | update dependencies of dependencies packages |
npm update [package name] -g | update global package installation |
npm docs [package name] | show README, official website, of the given package |
npm outdated | show packages that should be updated |
🧨 !important By default, in node@5 the
--save
flag is implicit.
Therefore running these two commands you will have the same result:
npm i lodash
# is the same as
npm i lodash --save
they add a new line in your package.json
into the dependecies
object:
{
"name": "test-project",
"version": "1.0.0",
"description": "",
"main": "index.js",
"scripts": {
"test": "echo \"Error: no test specified\" && exit 1"
},
"author": "Giulia Chiola",
"license": "ISC",
"dependencies": {
"lodash": "^4.17.21"
}
}
Aliases
Alias | Command |
npm i | npm install |
npm i [package name] -D | npm install [package name] --save-dev |
npm ls | npm list |
npm up [package name] | npm update [package name] |
npm un [package name] | npm uninstall [package name] |
Config
Set initial values for npm projects:
npm config set init-author-name "Your name"
npm config set init-author-email "your@email.com"
npm config set init-license MIT
⚡️ Bonus tip
npm-check is a useful tool to check for outdated, incorrect, and unused dependencies
📚 More info