npm CLI Documentation

libnpmaccess is a Node.js library that provides programmatic access to the functionality of the npm access CLI command. It allows you to manage account MFA settings, list packages and permissions, view package collaborators, and define permissions for users, organizations, and teams.

const access = require('libnpmaccess')
const opts = { '//registry.npmjs.org/:_authToken: 'npm_token }

// List all packages @zkat has access to on the npm registry.
console.log(Object.keys(await access.getPackages('zkat', opts)))

package-lock.json is automatically generated whenever npm modifies the node_modules tree or package.json. It describes the exact dependency tree to ensure that subsequent installs produce identical results across different environments (teammates, CI/CD, deployments).

Key benefits include:

• Deterministic Installs: Guarantees identical dependency trees.
• Time-travel: Allows reverting to previous node_modules states via source control.
• Visibility: Provides readable diffs for dependency changes.
• Performance: Optimizes installation by skipping repeated metadata resolutions.
• Complete Tree Information: Since npm v7, lockfiles contain enough data to reconstruct the tree without reading package.json files constantly.

In @npmcli/arborist, Node objects represent packages and maintain various relationships to reflect how they exist on disk and within the dependency graph. Key relationships include:

• parent: The package containing the current node's node_modules folder.
• children: A Map<string, Node> of nodes located within the current node's node_modules folder.
• fsParent: The node that is the file system parent of the current node (relevant for symlinked packages).
• fsChildren: A Set<Node> of nodes that are file system children of the current node.
• target: For Link nodes, the node representing the actual path on disk.
• linksIn: For target nodes, a Set of all Link nodes pointing to that package.
• top: A node that has no parent.

Arborist models a node_modules tree as a logical graph of dependencies overlaid on a physical folder tree. It uses three primary entities:

• Node: Represents a package folder on disk. It tracks its physical location via node.parent and its contents via node.children (a Map of names to child nodes).
• Link: Represents a symbolic link to a package. Unlike a Node, dependencies are resolved from the link.target location rather than the link's location.
• Edge: Represents a dependency relationship between nodes. Each node has edgesIn (nodes that depend on it) and edgesOut (nodes it depends on). Edges have a type ('prod', 'peer', 'dev', or 'optional').

To run an offline verification of existing cache contents to ensure integrity and perform garbage collection, use the verify command.

npm cache verify

npm is typically bundled with Node.js. You can install it via official Node.js distributions or by using a direct installation script from npmjs.com.

Direct Download

You can install npm directly using the following script:

curl -qL https://www.npmjs.com/install.sh | sh

Node Version Managers

To manage multiple versions of Node.js and npm, it is recommended to use a Node version manager.

You can search for specific terms within the npm markdown documentation using the npm help command. The command searches documentation files for the provided terms and lists results sorted by relevance.

If the argument provided to npm help matches a known help topic, it displays that topic. If the argument is not a known topic, npm automatically invokes the help-search functionality to find relevant documentation.