Installing, maintaining, and publishing Node modules with npm

Modularizing and Managing JavaScript

Installing and Maintaining Node Modules with npm

Problem

You’re new to Node. You’ve installed it, and played around with the core Node modules installed with Node. But now, you need something more.

Solution

The glue that holds the Node universe together is npm, the Node package manager. To install a specific module, use the following on the command line:

npm install packagename

If you want to install the package globally, so it’s accessible from all locations in the computer, use the following:

npm install -g packagename

When to install locally or globally is dependent on whether you’re going to require() the module, or if you need to run it from the command line. Typically you install require() modules locally, and executables are installed globally, though you don’t have to follow this typical usage. If you do install a module globally, you might need administrative privileges:

sudo npm install -g packagename

Discussion

The solution demonstrated the most common use of npm: installing a registered npm module locally or globally on your system. However, you can install modules that are located in GitHub, downloaded as a tar file, or located in a folder. If you type:

npm install --help

you’ll get a list of allowable approaches for installing a module:

npm install
npm install <pkg>
npm install <pkg>@<tag>
npm install <pkg>@<version>
npm install <pkg>@<version range>
npm install <folder>
npm install <tarball file>
npm install <tarball