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<h1><a href="../cli/npm-install.html">npm-install</a></h1> <p>Install a package</p>
<h2 id="synopsis">SYNOPSIS</h2>
<pre><code>npm install (with no args in a package dir)
npm install &lt;tarball file&gt;
npm install &lt;tarball url&gt;
npm install &lt;folder&gt;
npm install [@&lt;scope&gt;/]&lt;name&gt; [--save|--save-dev|--save-optional] [--save-exact]
npm install [@&lt;scope&gt;/]&lt;name&gt;@&lt;tag&gt;
npm install [@&lt;scope&gt;/]&lt;name&gt;@&lt;version&gt;
npm install [@&lt;scope&gt;/]&lt;name&gt;@&lt;version range&gt;
npm i (with any of the previous argument usage)
</code></pre><h2 id="description">DESCRIPTION</h2>
<p>This command installs a package, and any packages that it depends on. If the
package has a shrinkwrap file, the installation of dependencies will be driven
by that. See <a href="../cli/npm-shrinkwrap.html"><a href="../cli/npm-shrinkwrap.html">npm-shrinkwrap(1)</a></a>.</p>
<p>A <code>package</code> is:</p>
<ul>
<li>a) a folder containing a program described by a package.json file</li>
<li>b) a gzipped tarball containing (a)</li>
<li>c) a url that resolves to (b)</li>
<li>d) a <code>&lt;name&gt;@&lt;version&gt;</code> that is published on the registry (see <code><a href="../misc/npm-registry.html"><a href="../misc/npm-registry.html">npm-registry(7)</a></a></code>) with (c)</li>
<li>e) a <code>&lt;name&gt;@&lt;tag&gt;</code> that points to (d)</li>
<li>f) a <code>&lt;name&gt;</code> that has a &quot;latest&quot; tag satisfying (e)</li>
<li>g) a <code>&lt;git remote url&gt;</code> that resolves to (b)</li>
</ul>
<p>Even if you never publish your package, you can still get a lot of
benefits of using npm if you just want to write a node program (a), and
perhaps if you also want to be able to easily install it elsewhere
after packing it up into a tarball (b).</p>
<ul>
<li><p><code>npm install</code> (in package directory, no arguments):</p>
<p> Install the dependencies in the local node_modules folder.</p>
<p> In global mode (ie, with <code>-g</code> or <code>--global</code> appended to the command),
it installs the current package context (ie, the current working
directory) as a global package.</p>
<p> By default, <code>npm install</code> will install all modules listed as
dependencies. With the <code>--production</code> flag,
npm will not install modules listed in <code>devDependencies</code>.</p>
</li>
<li><p><code>npm install &lt;folder&gt;</code>:</p>
<p> Install a package that is sitting in a folder on the filesystem.</p>
</li>
<li><p><code>npm install &lt;tarball file&gt;</code>:</p>
<p> Install a package that is sitting on the filesystem. Note: if you just want
to link a dev directory into your npm root, you can do this more easily by
using <code>npm link</code>.</p>
<p> Example:</p>
<pre><code> npm install ./package.tgz
</code></pre></li>
<li><p><code>npm install &lt;tarball url&gt;</code>:</p>
<p> Fetch the tarball url, and then install it. In order to distinguish between
this and other options, the argument must start with &quot;http://&quot; or &quot;https://&quot;</p>
<p> Example:</p>
<pre><code> npm install https://github.com/indexzero/forever/tarball/v0.5.6
</code></pre></li>
<li><p><code>npm install [@&lt;scope&gt;/]&lt;name&gt; [--save|--save-dev|--save-optional]</code>:</p>
<p> Do a <code>&lt;name&gt;@&lt;tag&gt;</code> install, where <code>&lt;tag&gt;</code> is the &quot;tag&quot; config. (See
<code><a href="../misc/npm-config.html"><a href="../misc/npm-config.html">npm-config(7)</a></a></code>.)</p>
<p> In most cases, this will install the latest version
of the module published on npm.</p>
<p> Example:</p>
<pre><code> npm install sax
</code></pre><p> <code>npm install</code> takes 3 exclusive, optional flags which save or update
the package version in your main package.json:</p>
<ul>
<li><p><code>--save</code>: Package will appear in your <code>dependencies</code>.</p>
</li>
<li><p><code>--save-dev</code>: Package will appear in your <code>devDependencies</code>.</p>
</li>
<li><p><code>--save-optional</code>: Package will appear in your <code>optionalDependencies</code>.</p>
<p>When using any of the above options to save dependencies to your
package.json, there is an additional, optional flag:</p>
</li>
<li><p><code>--save-exact</code>: Saved dependencies will be configured with an
exact version rather than using npm&#39;s default semver range
operator.</p>
<p><code>&lt;scope&gt;</code> is optional. The package will be downloaded from the registry
associated with the specified scope. If no registry is associated with
the given scope the default registry is assumed. See <code><a href="../misc/npm-scope.html"><a href="../misc/npm-scope.html">npm-scope(7)</a></a></code>.</p>
<p>Note: if you do not include the @-symbol on your scope name, npm will
interpret this as a GitHub repository instead, see below. Scopes names
must also be followed by a slash.</p>
<p>Examples:</p>
<pre><code>npm install sax --save
npm install githubname/reponame
npm install @myorg/privatepackage
npm install node-tap --save-dev
npm install dtrace-provider --save-optional
npm install readable-stream --save --save-exact
</code></pre></li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<pre><code>**Note**: If there is a file or folder named `&lt;name&gt;` in the current
working directory, then it will try to install that, and only try to
fetch the package by name if it is not valid.
</code></pre><ul>
<li><p><code>npm install [@&lt;scope&gt;/]&lt;name&gt;@&lt;tag&gt;</code>:</p>
<p> Install the version of the package that is referenced by the specified tag.
If the tag does not exist in the registry data for that package, then this
will fail.</p>
<p> Example:</p>
<pre><code> npm install sax@latest
npm install @myorg/mypackage@latest
</code></pre></li>
<li><p><code>npm install [@&lt;scope&gt;/]&lt;name&gt;@&lt;version&gt;</code>:</p>
<p> Install the specified version of the package. This will fail if the
version has not been published to the registry.</p>
<p> Example:</p>
<pre><code> npm install sax@0.1.1
npm install @myorg/privatepackage@1.5.0
</code></pre></li>
<li><p><code>npm install [@&lt;scope&gt;/]&lt;name&gt;@&lt;version range&gt;</code>:</p>
<p> Install a version of the package matching the specified version range. This
will follow the same rules for resolving dependencies described in <code><a href="../files/package.json.html"><a href="../files/package.json.html">package.json(5)</a></a></code>.</p>
<p> Note that most version ranges must be put in quotes so that your shell will
treat it as a single argument.</p>
<p> Example:</p>
<pre><code> npm install sax@&quot;&gt;=0.1.0 &lt;0.2.0&quot;
npm install @myorg/privatepackage@&quot;&gt;=0.1.0 &lt;0.2.0&quot;
</code></pre></li>
<li><p><code>npm install &lt;githubname&gt;/&lt;githubrepo&gt;</code>:</p>
<p> Install the package at <code>https://github.com/githubname/githubrepo&quot; by
attempting to clone it using</code>git`.</p>
<p> Example:</p>
<pre><code> npm install mygithubuser/myproject
</code></pre><p> To reference a package in a git repo that is not on GitHub, see git
remote urls below.</p>
</li>
<li><p><code>npm install &lt;git remote url&gt;</code>:</p>
<p> Install a package by cloning a git remote url. The format of the git
url is:</p>
<pre><code> &lt;protocol&gt;://[&lt;user&gt;@]&lt;hostname&gt;&lt;separator&gt;&lt;path&gt;[#&lt;commit-ish&gt;]
</code></pre><p> <code>&lt;protocol&gt;</code> is one of <code>git</code>, <code>git+ssh</code>, <code>git+http</code>, or
<code>git+https</code>. If no <code>&lt;commit-ish&gt;</code> is specified, then <code>master</code> is
used.</p>
<p> Examples:</p>
<pre><code> git+ssh://git@github.com:npm/npm.git#v1.0.27
git+https://isaacs@github.com/npm/npm.git
git://github.com/npm/npm.git#v1.0.27
</code></pre></li>
</ul>
<p>You may combine multiple arguments, and even multiple types of arguments.
For example:</p>
<pre><code>npm install sax@&quot;&gt;=0.1.0 &lt;0.2.0&quot; bench supervisor
</code></pre><p>The <code>--tag</code> argument will apply to all of the specified install targets. If a
tag with the given name exists, the tagged version is preferred over newer
versions.</p>
<p>The <code>--force</code> argument will force npm to fetch remote resources even if a
local copy exists on disk.</p>
<pre><code>npm install sax --force
</code></pre><p>The <code>--global</code> argument will cause npm to install the package globally
rather than locally. See <code><a href="../files/npm-folders.html"><a href="../files/npm-folders.html">npm-folders(5)</a></a></code>.</p>
<p>The <code>--link</code> argument will cause npm to link global installs into the
local space in some cases.</p>
<p>The <code>--no-bin-links</code> argument will prevent npm from creating symlinks for
any binaries the package might contain.</p>
<p>The <code>--no-optional</code> argument will prevent optional dependencies from
being installed.</p>
<p>The <code>--no-shrinkwrap</code> argument, which will ignore an available
shrinkwrap file and use the package.json instead.</p>
<p>The <code>--nodedir=/path/to/node/source</code> argument will allow npm to find the
node source code so that npm can compile native modules.</p>
<p>See <code><a href="../misc/npm-config.html"><a href="../misc/npm-config.html">npm-config(7)</a></a></code>. Many of the configuration params have some
effect on installation, since that&#39;s most of what npm does.</p>
<h2 id="algorithm">ALGORITHM</h2>
<p>To install a package, npm uses the following algorithm:</p>
<pre><code>install(where, what, family, ancestors)
fetch what, unpack to &lt;where&gt;/node_modules/&lt;what&gt;
for each dep in what.dependencies
resolve dep to precise version
for each dep@version in what.dependencies
not in &lt;where&gt;/node_modules/&lt;what&gt;/node_modules/*
and not in &lt;family&gt;
add precise version deps to &lt;family&gt;
install(&lt;where&gt;/node_modules/&lt;what&gt;, dep, family)
</code></pre><p>For this <code>package{dep}</code> structure: <code>A{B,C}, B{C}, C{D}</code>,
this algorithm produces:</p>
<pre><code>A
+-- B
`-- C
`-- D
</code></pre><p>That is, the dependency from B to C is satisfied by the fact that A
already caused C to be installed at a higher level.</p>
<p>See <a href="../files/npm-folders.html"><a href="../files/npm-folders.html">npm-folders(5)</a></a> for a more detailed description of the specific
folder structures that npm creates.</p>
<h3 id="limitations-of-npm-s-install-algorithm">Limitations of npm&#39;s Install Algorithm</h3>
<p>There are some very rare and pathological edge-cases where a cycle can
cause npm to try to install a never-ending tree of packages. Here is
the simplest case:</p>
<pre><code>A -&gt; B -&gt; A&#39; -&gt; B&#39; -&gt; A -&gt; B -&gt; A&#39; -&gt; B&#39; -&gt; A -&gt; ...
</code></pre><p>where <code>A</code> is some version of a package, and <code>A&#39;</code> is a different version
of the same package. Because <code>B</code> depends on a different version of <code>A</code>
than the one that is already in the tree, it must install a separate
copy. The same is true of <code>A&#39;</code>, which must install <code>B&#39;</code>. Because <code>B&#39;</code>
depends on the original version of <code>A</code>, which has been overridden, the
cycle falls into infinite regress.</p>
<p>To avoid this situation, npm flat-out refuses to install any
<code>name@version</code> that is already present anywhere in the tree of package
folder ancestors. A more correct, but more complex, solution would be
to symlink the existing version into the new location. If this ever
affects a real use-case, it will be investigated.</p>
<h2 id="see-also">SEE ALSO</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="../files/npm-folders.html"><a href="../files/npm-folders.html">npm-folders(5)</a></a></li>
<li><a href="../cli/npm-update.html"><a href="../cli/npm-update.html">npm-update(1)</a></a></li>
<li><a href="../cli/npm-link.html"><a href="../cli/npm-link.html">npm-link(1)</a></a></li>
<li><a href="../cli/npm-rebuild.html"><a href="../cli/npm-rebuild.html">npm-rebuild(1)</a></a></li>
<li><a href="../misc/npm-scripts.html"><a href="../misc/npm-scripts.html">npm-scripts(7)</a></a></li>
<li><a href="../cli/npm-build.html"><a href="../cli/npm-build.html">npm-build(1)</a></a></li>
<li><a href="../cli/npm-config.html"><a href="../cli/npm-config.html">npm-config(1)</a></a></li>
<li><a href="../misc/npm-config.html"><a href="../misc/npm-config.html">npm-config(7)</a></a></li>
<li><a href="../files/npmrc.html"><a href="../files/npmrc.html">npmrc(5)</a></a></li>
<li><a href="../misc/npm-registry.html"><a href="../misc/npm-registry.html">npm-registry(7)</a></a></li>
<li><a href="../cli/npm-tag.html"><a href="../cli/npm-tag.html">npm-tag(1)</a></a></li>
<li><a href="../cli/npm-rm.html"><a href="../cli/npm-rm.html">npm-rm(1)</a></a></li>
<li><a href="../cli/npm-shrinkwrap.html"><a href="../cli/npm-shrinkwrap.html">npm-shrinkwrap(1)</a></a></li>
</ul>
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<p id="footer">npm-install &mdash; npm@2.1.6</p>