npm-scope(7) -- Scoped packages

DESCRIPTION

All npm packages have a name. Some package names also have a scope. A scope follows the usual rules for package names (url-safe characters, no leading dots or underscores). When used in package names, preceded by an @-symbol and followed by a slash, e.g.

@somescope/somepackagename

Scopes are a way of grouping related packages together, and also affect a few things about the way npm treats the package.

As of 2014-09-03, scoped packages are not supported by the public npm registry. However, the npm client is backwards-compatible with un-scoped registries, so it can be used to work with scoped and un-scoped registries at the same time.

Installing scoped packages

Scoped packages are installed to a sub-folder of the regular installation folder, e.g. if your other packages are installed in node_modules/packagename, scoped modules will be in node_modules/@myorg/packagename. The scope folder (@myorg) is simply the name of the scope preceded by an @-symbol, and can contain any number of scoped packages.

A scoped package is install by referencing it by name, preceded by an @-symbol, in npm install:

npm install @myorg/mypackage

Or in package.json:

"dependencies": {
  "@myorg/mypackage": "^1.3.0"
}

Note that if the @-symbol is omitted in either case npm will instead attempt to install from GitHub; see npm-install(1).

Requiring scoped packages

Because scoped packages are installed into a scope folder, you have to include the name of the scope when requiring them in your code, e.g.

require('@myorg/mypackage')

There is nothing special about the way Node treats scope folders, this is just specifying to require the module mypackage in the folder called @myorg.

Publishing scoped packages

Scoped packages can be published to any registry that supports them. As of 2014-09-03, the public npm registry does not support scoped packages, so attempting to publish a scoped package to the registry will fail unless you have associated that scope with a different registry, see below.

Associating a scope with a registry

Scopes can be associated with a separate registry. This allows you to seamlessly use a mix of packages from the public npm registry and one or more private registries, such as npm Enterprise.

You can associate a scope with a registry at login, e.g.

npm login --registry=http://reg.example.com --scope=@myco

Scopes have a many-to-one relationship with registries: one registry can host multiple scopes, but a scope only ever points to one registry.

You can also associate a scope with a registry using npm config:

npm config set @myco:registry http://reg.example.com

Once a scope is associated with a registry, any npm install for a package with that scope will request packages from that registry instead. Any npm publish for a package name that contains the scope will be published to that registry instead.

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