Ubuntu Manpage: npm-config - More than you probably want to know about npm configuration

NAME

       npm-config - More than you probably want to know about npm configuration

DESCRIPTION

       npm gets its configuration values from the following sources, sorted by priority:

   Command Line Flags
       Putting  --foo bar on the command line sets the foo configuration parameter to "bar". A --
       argument tells the cli parser to stop reading flags. A --flag parameter that is at the end
       of the command will be given the value of true.

   Environment Variables
       Any   environment  variables  that  start  with  npm_config_  will  be  interpreted  as  a
       configuration parameter. For example, putting npm_config_foo=bar in your environment  will
       set  the  foo  configuration parameter to bar. Any environment configurations that are not
       given a value will be given the value of true.  Config  values  are  case-insensitive,  so
       NPM_CONFIG_FOO=bar will work the same.

   npmrc Files
       The four relevant files are:

       •   per-project config file (/path/to/my/project/.npmrc)

       •   per-user config file (~/.npmrc)

       •   global config file ($PREFIX/etc/npmrc)

       •   npm builtin config file (/path/to/npm/npmrc)

       See npm help 5 npmrc for more details.

   Default Configs
       Run  npm  config  ls -l to see a set of configuration parameters that are internal to npm,
       and are defaults if nothing else is specified.

Shorthands and Other CLI Niceties

       The following shorthands are parsed on the command-line:

       •   -v: --version

       •   -h, -?, --help, -H: --usage

       •   -s, --silent: --loglevel silent

       •   -q, --quiet: --loglevel warn

       •   -d: --loglevel info

       •   -dd, --verbose: --loglevel verbose

       •   -ddd: --loglevel silly

       •   -g: --global

       •   -C: --prefix

       •   -l: --long

       •   -m: --message

       •   -p, --porcelain: --parseable

       •   -reg: --registry

       •   -f: --force

       •   -desc: --description

       •   -S: --save

       •   -D: --save-dev

       •   -O: --save-optional

       •   -B: --save-bundle

       •   -E: --save-exact

       •   -y: --yes

       •   -n: --yes false

       •   ll and la commands: ls --long

       If the specified configuration param  resolves  unambiguously  to  a  known  configuration
       parameter, then it is expanded to that configuration parameter. For example:

           npm ls --par
           # same as:
           npm ls --parseable

       If multiple single-character shorthands are strung together, and the resulting combination
       is unambiguously not some other configuration param, then it is expanded  to  its  various
       component pieces. For example:

           npm ls -gpld
           # same as:
           npm ls --global --parseable --long --loglevel info

Per-Package Config Settings

       When  running  scripts  (see  npm  help  7 npm-scripts) the package.json "config" keys are
       overwritten in the environment if there is a config param of <name>[@<version>]:<key>. For
       example, if the package.json has this:

           { "name" : "foo"
           , "config" : { "port" : "8080" }
           , "scripts" : { "start" : "node server.js" } }

       and the server.js is this:

           http.createServer(...).listen(process.env.npm_package_config_port)

       then the user could change the behavior by doing:

           npm config set foo:port 80

       See npm help 5 package.json for more information.

Config Settings

access
• Default: restricted

• Type: Access

When publishing scoped packages, the access level defaults to restricted. If you want your
scoped package to be publicly viewable (and installable) set --access=public. The only
valid values for access are public and restricted. Unscoped packages always have an access
level of public.

always-auth
• Default: false

• Type: Boolean

Force npm to always require authentication when accessing the registry, even for GET
requests.

also
• Default: null

• Type: String

When "dev" or "development" and running local npm shrinkwrap, npm outdated, or npm update,
is an alias for --dev.

bin-links
• Default: true

• Type: Boolean

Tells npm to create symlinks (or .cmd shims on Windows) for package executables.

Set to false to have it not do this. This can be used to work around the fact that some
file systems don´t support symlinks, even on ostensibly Unix systems.

browser
• Default: OS X: "open", Windows: "start", Others: "xdg-open"

• Type: String

The browser that is called by the npm docs command to open websites.

ca
• Default: The npm CA certificate

• Type: String, Array or null

The Certificate Authority signing certificate that is trusted for SSL connections to the
registry. Values should be in PEM format with newlines replaced by the string "\n". For
example:

ca="-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----\nXXXX\nXXXX\n-----END CERTIFICATE-----"

Set to null to only allow "known" registrars, or to a specific CA cert to trust only that
specific signing authority.

Multiple CAs can be trusted by specifying an array of certificates:

ca[]="..."
ca[]="..."

See also the strict-ssl config.

cafile
• Default: null

• Type: path

A path to a file containing one or multiple Certificate Authority signing certificates.
Similar to the ca setting, but allows for multiple CA´s, as well as for the CA information
to be stored in a file on disk.

cache
• Default: Windows: %AppData%\npm-cache, Posix: ~/.npm

• Type: path

The location of npm´s cache directory. See npm help npm-cache

cache-lock-stale
• Default: 60000 (1 minute)

• Type: Number

The number of ms before cache folder lockfiles are considered stale.

cache-lock-retries
• Default: 10

• Type: Number

Number of times to retry to acquire a lock on cache folder lockfiles.

cache-lock-wait
• Default: 10000 (10 seconds)

• Type: Number

Number of ms to wait for cache lock files to expire.

cache-max
• Default: Infinity

• Type: Number

The maximum time (in seconds) to keep items in the registry cache before re-checking
against the registry.

Note that no purging is done unless the npm cache clean command is explicitly used, and
that only GET requests use the cache.

cache-min
• Default: 10

• Type: Number

The minimum time (in seconds) to keep items in the registry cache before re-checking
against the registry.

Note that no purging is done unless the npm cache clean command is explicitly used, and
that only GET requests use the cache.

cert
• Default: null

• Type: String

A client certificate to pass when accessing the registry.

color
• Default: true on Posix, false on Windows

• Type: Boolean or "always"

If false, never shows colors. If "always" then always shows colors. If true, then only
prints color codes for tty file descriptors.

depth
• Default: Infinity

• Type: Number

The depth to go when recursing directories for npm ls, npm cache ls, and npm outdated.

For npm outdated, a setting of Infinity will be treated as 0 since that gives more useful
information. To show the outdated status of all packages and dependents, use a large
integer value, e.g., npm outdated --depth 9999

description
• Default: true

• Type: Boolean

Show the description in npm search

dev
• Default: false

• Type: Boolean

Install dev-dependencies along with packages.

Note that dev-dependencies are also installed if the npat flag is set.

dry-run
• Default: false

• Type: Boolean

Indicates that you don´t want npm to make any changes and that it should only report what
it would have done. This can be passed into any of the commands that modify your local
installation, eg, install, update, dedupe, uninstall. This is NOT currently honored by
network related commands, eg dist-tags, owner, publish, etc.

editor
• Default: EDITOR environment variable if set, or "vi" on Posix, or "notepad" on
Windows.

• Type: path

The command to run for npm edit or npm config edit.

engine-strict
• Default: false

• Type: Boolean

If set to true, then npm will stubbornly refuse to install (or even consider installing)
any package that claims to not be compatible with the current Node.js version.

force
• Default: false

• Type: Boolean

Makes various commands more forceful.

• lifecycle script failure does not block progress.

• publishing clobbers previously published versions.

• skips cache when requesting from the registry.

• prevents checks against clobbering non-npm files.

fetch-retries
• Default: 2

• Type: Number

The "retries" config for the retry module to use when fetching packages from the registry.

fetch-retry-factor
• Default: 10

• Type: Number

The "factor" config for the retry module to use when fetching packages.

fetch-retry-mintimeout
• Default: 10000 (10 seconds)

• Type: Number

The "minTimeout" config for the retry module to use when fetching packages.

fetch-retry-maxtimeout
• Default: 60000 (1 minute)

• Type: Number

The "maxTimeout" config for the retry module to use when fetching packages.

git
• Default: "git"

• Type: String

The command to use for git commands. If git is installed on the computer, but is not in
the PATH, then set this to the full path to the git binary.

git-tag-version
• Default: true

• Type: Boolean

Tag the commit when using the npm version command.

global
• Default: false

• Type: Boolean

Operates in "global" mode, so that packages are installed into the prefix folder instead
of the current working directory. See npm help 5 npm-folders for more on the differences
in behavior.

• packages are installed into the {prefix}/lib/node_modules folder, instead of the
current working directory.

• bin files are linked to {prefix}/bin

• man pages are linked to {prefix}/share/man

globalconfig
• Default: {prefix}/etc/npmrc

• Type: path

The config file to read for global config options.

global-style
• Default: false

• Type: Boolean

Causes npm to install the package into your local node_modules folder with the same layout
it uses with the global node_modules folder. Only your direct dependencies will show in
node_modules and everything they depend on will be flattened in their node_modules
folders. This obviously will elminate some deduping. If used with legacy-bundling,
legacy-bundling will be preferred.

group
• Default: GID of the current process

• Type: String or Number

The group to use when running package scripts in global mode as the root user.

heading
• Default: "npm"

• Type: String

The string that starts all the debugging log output.

https-proxy
• Default: null

• Type: url

A proxy to use for outgoing https requests. If the HTTPS_PROXY or https_proxy or
HTTP_PROXY or http_proxy environment variables are set, proxy settings will be honored by
the underlying request library.

if-present
• Default: false

• Type: Boolean

If true, npm will not exit with an error code when run-script is invoked for a script that
isn´t defined in the scripts section of package.json. This option can be used when it´s
desirable to optionally run a script when it´s present and fail if the script fails. This
is useful, for example, when running scripts that may only apply for some builds in an
otherwise generic CI setup.

ignore-scripts
• Default: false

• Type: Boolean

If true, npm does not run scripts specified in package.json files.

init-module
• Default: ~/.npm-init.js

• Type: path

A module that will be loaded by the npm init command. See the documentation for the
init-package-json https://github.com/isaacs/init-package-json module for more information,
or npm help init.

init-author-name
• Default: ""

• Type: String

The value npm init should use by default for the package author´s name.

init-author-email
• Default: ""

• Type: String

The value npm init should use by default for the package author´s email.

init-author-url
• Default: ""

• Type: String

The value npm init should use by default for the package author´s homepage.

init-license
• Default: "ISC"

• Type: String

The value npm init should use by default for the package license.

init-version
• Default: "1.0.0"

• Type: semver

The value that npm init should use by default for the package version number, if not
already set in package.json.

json
• Default: false

• Type: Boolean

Whether or not to output JSON data, rather than the normal output.

This feature is currently experimental, and the output data structures for many commands
is either not implemented in JSON yet, or subject to change. Only the output from npm ls
--json is currently valid.

key
• Default: null

• Type: String

A client key to pass when accessing the registry.

legacy-bundling
• Default: false

• Type: Boolean

Causes npm to install the package such that versions of npm prior to 1.4, such as the one
included with node 0.8, can install the package. This eliminates all automatic deduping.
If used with global-style this option will be preferred.

link
• Default: false

• Type: Boolean

If true, then local installs will link if there is a suitable globally installed package.

Note that this means that local installs can cause things to be installed into the global
space at the same time. The link is only done if one of the two conditions are met:

• The package is not already installed globally, or

• the globally installed version is identical to the version that is being installed
locally.

local-address
• Default: undefined

• Type: IP Address

The IP address of the local interface to use when making connections to the npm registry.
Must be IPv4 in versions of Node prior to 0.12.

loglevel
• Default: "warn"

• Type: String

• Values: "silent", "error", "warn", "http", "info", "verbose", "silly"

What level of logs to report. On failure, all logs are written to npm-debug.log in the
current working directory.

Any logs of a higher level than the setting are shown. The default is "warn", which shows
warn and error output.

logstream
• Default: process.stderr

• Type: Stream

This is the stream that is passed to the npmlog https://github.com/npm/npmlog module at
run time.

It cannot be set from the command line, but if you are using npm programmatically, you may
wish to send logs to somewhere other than stderr.

If the color config is set to true, then this stream will receive colored output if it is
a TTY.

long
• Default: false

• Type: Boolean

Show extended information in npm ls and npm search.

message
• Default: "%s"

• Type: String

Commit message which is used by npm version when creating version commit.

Any "%s" in the message will be replaced with the version number.

node-version
• Default: process.version

• Type: semver or false

The node version to use when checking a package´s engines map.

npat
• Default: false

• Type: Boolean

Run tests on installation.

onload-script
• Default: false

• Type: path

A node module to require() when npm loads. Useful for programmatic usage.

only
• Default: null

• Type: String

When "dev" or "development" and running local npm install without any arguments, only
devDependencies (and their dependencies) are installed.

When "dev" or "development" and running local npm ls, npm outdated, or npm update, is an
alias for --dev.

When "prod" or "production" and running local npm install without any arguments, only
non-devDependencies (and their dependencies) are installed.

When "prod" or "production" and running local npm ls, npm outdated, or npm update, is an
alias for --production.

optional
• Default: true

• Type: Boolean

Attempt to install packages in the optionalDependencies object. Note that if these
packages fail to install, the overall installation process is not aborted.

parseable
• Default: false

• Type: Boolean

Output parseable results from commands that write to standard output.

prefix
• Default: see npm help 5 folders

• Type: path

The location to install global items. If set on the command line, then it forces
non-global commands to run in the specified folder.

production
• Default: false

• Type: Boolean

Set to true to run in "production" mode.

1. devDependencies are not installed at the topmost level when running local npm install
without any arguments.

2. Set the NODE_ENV="production" for lifecycle scripts.

progress
• Default: true

• Type: Boolean

When set to true, npm will display a progress bar during time intensive operations, if
process.stderr is a TTY.

Set to false to suppress the progress bar.

proprietary-attribs
• Default: true

• Type: Boolean

Whether or not to include proprietary extended attributes in the tarballs created by npm.

Unless you are expecting to unpack package tarballs with something other than npm --
particularly a very outdated tar implementation -- leave this as true.

proxy
• Default: null

• Type: url

A proxy to use for outgoing http requests. If the HTTP_PROXY or http_proxy environment
variables are set, proxy settings will be honored by the underlying request library.

rebuild-bundle
• Default: true

• Type: Boolean

Rebuild bundled dependencies after installation.

registry
• Default: https://registry.npmjs.org/

• Type: url

The base URL of the npm package registry.

rollback
• Default: true

• Type: Boolean

Remove failed installs.

save
• Default: false

• Type: Boolean

Save installed packages to a package.json file as dependencies.

When used with the npm rm command, it removes it from the dependencies object.

Only works if there is already a package.json file present.

save-bundle
• Default: false

• Type: Boolean

If a package would be saved at install time by the use of --save, --save-dev, or
--save-optional, then also put it in the bundleDependencies list.

When used with the npm rm command, it removes it from the bundledDependencies list.

save-dev
• Default: false

• Type: Boolean

Save installed packages to a package.json file as devDependencies.

When used with the npm rm command, it removes it from the devDependencies object.

Only works if there is already a package.json file present.

save-exact
• Default: false

• Type: Boolean

Dependencies saved to package.json using --save, --save-dev or --save-optional will be
configured with an exact version rather than using npm´s default semver range operator.

save-optional
• Default: false

• Type: Boolean

Save installed packages to a package.json file as optionalDependencies.

When used with the npm rm command, it removes it from the devDependencies object.

Only works if there is already a package.json file present.

save-prefix
• Default: ´^´

• Type: String

Configure how versions of packages installed to a package.json file via --save or
--save-dev get prefixed.

For example if a package has version 1.2.3, by default its version is set to ^1.2.3 which
allows minor upgrades for that package, but after npm config set save-prefix=´~´ it would
be set to ~1.2.3 which only allows patch upgrades.

scope
• Default: ""

• Type: String

Associate an operation with a scope for a scoped registry. Useful when logging in to a
private registry for the first time: npm login --scope=@organization
--registry=registry.organization.com, which will cause @organization to be mapped to the
registry for future installation of packages specified according to the pattern
@organization/package.

searchopts
• Default: ""

• Type: String

Space-separated options that are always passed to search.

searchexclude
• Default: ""

• Type: String

Space-separated options that limit the results from search.

searchsort
• Default: "name"

• Type: String

• Values: "name", "-name", "date", "-date", "description", "-description", "keywords",
"-keywords"

Indication of which field to sort search results by. Prefix with a - character to indicate
reverse sort.

shell
• Default: SHELL environment variable, or "bash" on Posix, or "cmd" on Windows

• Type: path

The shell to run for the npm explore command.

shrinkwrap
• Default: true

• Type: Boolean

If set to false, then ignore npm-shrinkwrap.json files when installing.

sign-git-tag
• Default: false

• Type: Boolean

If set to true, then the npm version command will tag the version using -s to add a
signature.

Note that git requires you to have set up GPG keys in your git configs for this to work
properly.

strict-ssl
• Default: true

• Type: Boolean

Whether or not to do SSL key validation when making requests to the registry via https.

NAME

DESCRIPTION

Shorthands and Other CLI Niceties

Per-Package Config Settings

Config Settings

SEE ALSO