NPM

NPM is a package manager for JavaScript and the NPM command-line tool is bundled with Node.js.

Global packages are installed in /usr/local/lib/node_modules, you can use these packages as command line tools. Adding option -g on your NPM commands enables NPM commands to work globally.

Local packages are used as modules to support your project work. You can declare the necessary packages as dependencies for production or devDependencies for development or testing in package.json file, then simply run npm install to install packages. While installing node modules, NPM will look for the higher directories which contain node_modules folder or package.json file from current directory and installs modules in it.

Usages

# Install packages:
# - It is optional to save them as dependencies or devDependencies in `package.json`.
npm install <packages> [--save/--save-dev]
# Uninstall packages:
npm uninstall <packages> [--save/--save-dev]
# List installed global packages:
npm ls --depth=0 -g
# List outdated packages:
npm outdated
# Update all packages or specific packages:
npm update [<packages>]

Run npm -l or visit https://docs.npmjs.com/cli/ for more informations.

Tab-completion

Check Zsh plugins: npm section:

Plugin NPM for ZSH enables the tab-completion feature. Moreover, some NPM command aliases are injected in.

alias npmg="npm i -g "
alias npmS="npm i -S "
alias npmD="npm i -D "
alias npmE='PATH="$(npm bin)":"$PATH"'
alias npmO="npm outdated"

package.json file

For generating package.json, just run npm init and follow the prompt instructions. Additionally, you can get a default package.json by running npm init -y. If there is no description field in the package.json, NPM uses the first line of the README.md or README instead.

Check more details or run npm help package.json.

.npmrc file

• ~/.npmrc contains per-user config.
• .npmrc in project folder contains per-project config.

It's recommended to set several config options for the init command:

npm set init.author.email "[email protected]"
npm set init.author.name "your_name"

These commands will add the config key value pairs into ~/.npmrc file. You can create the .npmrc file manually for a single project.

Run npm help config getting more config info.