An introduction to the npm package manager
A quick guide to npm, the powerful package manager key to the success of Node.js. In January 2017 over 350000 packages were reported being listed in the npm registry, making it the biggest single language code repository on Earth, and you can be sure there is a package for (almost!) everything.
Introduction to npm
npm
is the standard package manager for Node.js.
In January 2017 over 350000 packages were reported being listed in the npm registry, making it the biggest single language code repository on Earth, and you can be sure there is a package for (almost!) everything.
It started as a way to download and manage dependencies of Node.js packages, but it has since become a tool used also in frontend JavaScript.
There are many things that npm
does.
Yarn is an alternative to npm. Make sure you check it out as well.
Installation
npm
is installed when you install Node.js. Head to https://nodejs.org and install Node, if you haven’t installed it already on your system.
How to use npm
npm
manages downloads of dependencies of your project.
Installing all dependencies
If a project has a packages.json
file, by running
npm install
it will install everything the project needs, in the node_modules
folder, creating it if it’s not existing already.
Installing a single package
You can also install a specific package by running
npm install <package-name>
Often you’ll see more flags added to this command:
--save
installs and adds the entry to thepackage.json
file dependencies (default as of npm 5)--save-dev
installs and adds the entry to thepackage.json
file devDependencies
The difference is mainly that devDependencies are usually development tools, like a testing library, while dependencies
are bundled with the app in production.
Updating packages
Updating is also made easy, by running
npm update
npm
will check all packages for a newer version that satisfies your versioning constraints.
You can specify a single package to update as well:
npm update <package-name>
Versioning
In addition to plain downloads, npm
also manages versioning, so you can specify any specific version of a package, or require a version higher or lower than what you need.
Many times you’ll find that a library is only compatible with a major release of another library.
Or a bug in the latest release of a lib, still unfixed, is causing an issue.
Specifying an explicit version of a library also helps to keep everyone on the same exact version of a package, so that the whole team runs the same version until the package.json
file is updated.
In all those cases, versioning helps a lot, and npm
follows the semantic versioning (semver) standard.
Running Tasks
The package.json file supports a format for specifying command line tasks that can be run by using
npm run <task-name>
For example:
{
"scripts": {
"start-dev": "node lib/server-development",
"start": "node lib/server-production"
},
}
It’s very common to use this feature to run Webpack:
{
"scripts": {
"watch": "webpack --watch --progress --colors --config webpack.conf.js",
"dev": "webpack --progress --colors --config webpack.conf.js",
"prod": "NODE_ENV=production webpack -p --config webpack.conf.js",
},
}
So instead of typing those long commands, which are easy to forget or mistype, you can run
$ npm run watch
$ npm run dev
$ npm run prod
I wrote 17 books to help you become a better developer, download them all at $0 cost by joining my newsletter
JOIN MY CODING BOOTCAMP, an amazing cohort course that will be a huge step up in your coding career - covering React, Next.js - next edition February 2025