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

name
description
shorthands and other cli niceties
per-package config settings
config settings
see also

NAME

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

DESCRIPTION

       npm gets its configuration values from 6 sources, in this 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 three relevant files are:

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

       •   global config file ($PREFIX/npmrc)

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

       npm help  See npmrc for more details.

   Default Configs
       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

       •   -l: --long

       •   -m: --message

       •   -p, --porcelain: --parseable

       •   -reg: --registry

       •   -v: --version

       •   -f: --force

       •   -desc: --description

       •   -S: --save

       •   -D: --save-dev

       •   -O: --save-optional

       •   -B: --save-bundle

       •   -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 (npm help  see 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

       npm help  See package.json for more information.

Config Settings

always-auth
• Default: false

• Type: Boolean

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

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 or null

The Certificate Authority signing certificate that is trusted for SSL connections to the registry.

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

See also the strict-ssl config.

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

• Type: path

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

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.

coverage
• Default: false

• Type: Boolean

A flag to tell test-harness to run with their coverage options enabled, if they respond to the
npm_config_coverage environment variable.

depth
• Default: Infinity

• Type: Number

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

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.

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.

global
• Default: false

• Type: Boolean

npm help Operates in "global" mode, so that packages are installed into the prefix folder instead of the
current working directory. See 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.

globalignorefile
• Default: {prefix}/etc/npmignore

• Type: path

The config file to read for global ignore patterns to apply to all users and all projects.

If not found, but there is a "gitignore" file in the same directory, then that will be used instead.

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.

https-proxy
• Default: the HTTPS_PROXY or https_proxy or HTTP_PROXY or http_proxy environment variables.

• Type: url

A proxy to use for outgoing https requests.

user-agent
• Default: node/{process.version} {process.platform} {process.arch}

• Type: String

Sets a User-Agent to the request header

ignore
• Default: ""

• Type: string

A white-space separated list of glob patterns of files to always exclude from packages when building
tarballs.

init-module
• Default: ~/.npm-init.js

• Type: path

npm help 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-init.

init.version
• Default: "0.0.0"

• Type: semver

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

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.

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.

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.

loglevel
• Default: "http"

• Type: String

• Values: "silent", "win", "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 "http", which shows http, warn, and
error output.

logstream
• Default: process.stderr

• Type: Stream

This is the stream that is passed to the npmlog https://github.com/isaacs/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

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 package´s "engines" hash.

npat
• Default: false

• Type: Boolean

Run tests on installation and report results to the npaturl.

npaturl
• Default: Not yet implemented

• Type: url

The url to report npat test results.

onload-script
• Default: false

• Type: path

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

optional
• Default: true

• Type: Boolean

Attempt to install packages in the optionalDependencies hash. 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
• npm help Default: see npm-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.

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: HTTP_PROXY or http_proxy environment variable, or null

• Type: url

A proxy to use for outgoing http requests.

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 hash.

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 hash.

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

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 hash.

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

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