Useful npm Tips and Tricks that Developers Should Know
Node Package Manager, or npm, is a tool to install and manage JavaScript packages in your project. And if you have Node installed on your computer, you have already have npm as well.
npm Commands You Should Know
This is not a tutorial for learning npm, the official docs are good place to get started, but a collection of tips and tricks that will help you do more with the npm
utility.
Let’s jump right into the list of useful commands:
Instantly run packages without installing
The NPM registry is a treasure trove for finding packages that do useful stuff and aren’t just for programmers.
For instance, the speed-test
package shows the speed of your internet connection. The emoj
packages helps you search for emojis from the terminal. And wifi-passwords
is a simple way to know the password of your current WiFi network.
You can run these utility packages directly from the command line without installing them using the npx command.
npx speed-test
npx emoj unicorn
npx public-ip-cli
npx wifi-password-cli
Install npm packages faster
You’ve probably used npm install
to install packages, and dependencies, in the local node_modules
folder of a project. Replace this command with npm-ci and you’ll be able to install packages significantly faster.
npm ci
If a node_modules folder is already present, it will be automatically removed before npm ci
begins to install packages.
Recover space
If you have been working with npm packages for some time, the various node_modules
folders on the disks could be consuming several gigabytes of space. The very useful npkill finds all node_modules folders on your system and lets you delete them interactively.
npx npkill
Quickly download a Git repository
Most developers use the git clone
command to download a Git repository. However, this also downloads the entire git history making the process slower. The degit package can download the latest commit to the master branch locally and you need not specify the full Github URL.
npx degit username/repo
npx degit labnol/apps-script-starter
List installed packages
Generate a list of all npm packages that are installed on the system with global scope. Remove the -g
flag to list only packages installed in the current project directory.
npm ls --depth=0
npm ls -g
Find unused dependencies
The depcheck command will list all the npm packages that are not used in the project based on the dependencies in package.json
.
npx depcheck
Use the command npm uninstall <package-name>
to uninstall any unused package.
Find outdated dependencies
Get a list of all outdated packages in your current project. This command checks every single module listed in the package.json
file and compares it with the latest version available in the NPM registry.
Add the -g
flag to get all outdated packages that are installed globally on the system.
npm outdated
npm outdated -g
Update the package versions
The ncu command will update the package.json
file with the latest version of the packages listed in the dependencies
and devDependencies
sections.
Or use the npm-check -u
command to update packages to their latest version in interactive mode.
npm-check
npm-check -u
ncu -u
Remove extra packages
Use the prune command to remove all packages that are installed locally but not listed in the package.json
file. If the —dry-run flag is used then no changes will actually be made.
npm prune
Alternatively, you can remove the node_modules
folder and run npm ci
again.
Find vulnerable packages
Run the audit
command to check for vulnerabilities in the packages listed in the dependencies
and devDependencies
sections. Add the fix
flag to automatically apply the fixes, if any.
npm audit
npm audit fix
Useful NPM Package Websites
- bundlephobia.com - Upload your
package.json
file and get an idea of how much it would cost (size-wise) to install the dependencies. - diff.intrinsic.com - Compare any two versions of a npm package and know which files have changed in the update.
- npmtrends.com - Compare the relative popularity of packages across the npm registry based on the number of downloads.
source:https://ift.tt/3Bc47iD
Comments
Post a Comment