Provided by: npm_3.5.2-0ubuntu4_all 
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.
See also the ca config.
tag
• Default: latest
• Type: String
If you ask npm to install a package and don´t tell it a specific version, then it will install the
specified tag.
Also the tag that is added to the package@version specified by the npm tag command, if no explicit tag is
given.
tag-version-prefix
• Default: "v"
• Type: String
If set, alters the prefix used when tagging a new version when performing a version increment using
npm-version. To remove the prefix altogether, set it to the empty string: "".
Because other tools may rely on the convention that npm version tags look like v1.0.0, only use this
property if it is absolutely necessary. In particular, use care when overriding this setting for public
packages.
tmp
• Default: TMPDIR environment variable, or "/tmp"
• Type: path
Where to store temporary files and folders. All temp files are deleted on success, but left behind on
failure for forensic purposes.
unicode
• Default: true on windows and mac/unix systems with a unicode locale
• Type: Boolean
When set to true, npm uses unicode characters in the tree output. When false, it uses ascii characters to
draw trees.
unsafe-perm
• Default: false if running as root, true otherwise
• Type: Boolean
Set to true to suppress the UID/GID switching when running package scripts. If set explicitly to false,
then installing as a non-root user will fail.
usage
• Default: false
• Type: Boolean
Set to show short usage output (like the -H output) instead of complete help when doing npm help
npm-help.
user
• Default: "nobody"
• Type: String or Number
The UID to set to when running package scripts as root.
userconfig
• Default: ~/.npmrc
• Type: path
The location of user-level configuration settings.
umask
• Default: 022
• Type: Octal numeric string in range 0000..0777 (0..511)
The "umask" value to use when setting the file creation mode on files and folders.
Folders and executables are given a mode which is 0777 masked against this value. Other files are given a
mode which is 0666 masked against this value. Thus, the defaults are 0755 and 0644 respectively.
user-agent
• Default: node/{process.version} {process.platform} {process.arch}
• Type: String
Sets a User-Agent to the request header
version
• Default: false
• Type: boolean
If true, output the npm version and exit successfully.
Only relevant when specified explicitly on the command line.
versions
• Default: false
• Type: boolean
If true, output the npm version as well as node´s process.versions map, and exit successfully.
Only relevant when specified explicitly on the command line.
viewer
• Default: "man" on Posix, "browser" on Windows
• Type: path
The program to use to view help content.
Set to "browser" to view html help content in the default web browser.
SEE ALSO
• npm help config
• npm help 5 npmrc
• npm help 7 scripts
• npm help 5 folders
• npm help npm
December 2015 NPM-CONFIG(7)