config

Manage the npm configuration file

SYNOPSIS

npm config set <key> <value> [--global]
npm config get <key>
npm config delete <key>
npm config list
npm config edit
npm get <key>
npm set <key> <value> [--global]

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.

Per-user config file

$HOME/.npmrc (or the userconfig param, if set above)

This file is an ini-file formatted list of key = value parameters.

Global config file

$PREFIX/etc/npmrc (or the globalconfig param, if set above): This file is an ini-file formatted list of key = value parameters

Built-in config file

path/to/npm/itself/npmrc

This is an unchangeable "builtin" configuration file that npm keeps consistent across updates. Set fields in here using the ./configure script that comes with npm. This is primarily for distribution maintainers to override default configs in a standard and consistent manner.

Default Configs

A set of configuration parameters that are internal to npm, and are defaults if nothing else is specified.

Sub-commands

Config supports the following sub-commands:

set

npm config set key value

Sets the config key to the value.

If value is omitted, then it sets it to "true".

get

npm config get key

Echo the config value to stdout.

list

npm config list

Show all the config settings.

delete

npm config delete key

Deletes the key from all configuration files.

edit

npm config edit

Opens the config file in an editor. Use the --global flag to edit the global config.

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
-l: --long
-desc: --description
-S: --save
-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 scripts(1)) 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

Config Settings

always-auth

Default: false
Type: Boolean

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

bin-publish

Default: false
Type: Boolean

If set to true, then binary packages will be created on publish.

This is the way to opt into the "bindist" behavior described below.

bindist

Default: Unstable node versions, null, otherwise "<node version>-<platform>-<os release>"
Type: String or null

Experimental: on stable versions of node, binary distributions will be created with this tag. If a user then installs that package, and their bindist tag is found in the list of binary distributions, they will get that prebuilt version.

Pre-build node packages have their preinstall, install, and postinstall scripts stripped (since they are run prior to publishing), and do not have their build directories automatically ignored.

It's yet to be seen if this is a good idea.

browser

Default: OS X: "open", others: "google-chrome"
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.

cache

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

The location of npm's cache directory. See cache(1)

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.

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.

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

Operates in "global" mode, so that packages are installed into the prefix folder instead of the current working directory. See folders(1) for more on the differences in behavior.

packages are installed into the prefix/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.

ignore

Default: ""
Type: string

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

init.version

Default: "0.0.0"
Type: semver

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

init.author.name

Default: "0.0.0"
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.

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.

logfd

Default: stderr file descriptor
Type: Number or Stream

The location to write log output.

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.

logprefix

Default: true on Posix, false on Windows
Type: Boolean

Whether or not to prefix log messages with "npm" and the log level. See also "color" and "loglevel".

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.

outfd

Default: standard output file descriptor
Type: Number or Stream

Where to write "normal" output. This has no effect on log output.

parseable

Default: false
Type: Boolean

Output parseable results from commands that write to standard output.

prefix

Default: node's process.installPrefix
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.

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

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.

strict-ssl

Default: true
Type: Boolean

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

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
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 help(1).

user

Default: "nobody"
Type: String or Number

The UID to set to when running package scripts as root.

username

Default: null
Type: String

The username on the npm registry. Set with npm adduser

userconfig

Default: ~/.npmrc
Type: path

The location of user-level configuration settings.

userignorefile

Default: ~/.npmignore
Type: path

The location of a user-level ignore file to apply to all packages.

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

umask

Default: 022
Type: Octal numeric string

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.

version

Default: false
Type: boolean

If true, output the npm version 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.

yes

Default: null
Type: Boolean or null

If set to null, then prompt the user for responses in some circumstances.

If set to true, then answer "yes" to any prompt. If set to false then answer "no" to any prompt.