Package Managers

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Before defaulting to NPM or Yarn, consider using PNPM.

NPM

NPM Commands

For more commands, see this cheatsheet.

NPM Initialization

• npm init - Create a new package.json file
• npm i - Can be used as a shortcut for npm install

NPM Install

• npm install - Install all packages
• npm install <package> - Install a package
• npm install <package> --save-dev - Install a package as a dev dependency
• npm install <package> --global - Install a package globally
• npm uninstall <package> - Uninstall a package

NPM Update and Audit

• npm update - Update all packages
• npm outdated - Check for outdated packages
• npm audit - Check for vulnerabilities in installed packages
• npm audit fix - Fix vulnerabilities in installed packages
• npm audit fix --force - Fix vulnerabilities in installed packages and remove outdated packages

NPM Run

• npm run <script> - Run a script from the package.json file

Yarn

Yarn Commands

For more commands, see this cheatsheet.

Yarn Initialization

• yarn init - Create a new package.json file

Yarn Install

• yarn - Install all packages defined in package.json - same as npm install
• yarn add <package> - Install a package - same as npm install <package>
• yarn add <package> --dev - Install a package as a dev dependency

Yarn Upgrade

• yarn upgrade - Update all packages - same as npm update

Yarn Package Updates

• Link to all documentation
• yarn upgrade - Upgrade all packages to their latest version
• yarn upgrade left-pad - Upgrade a specific package to its latest version
• yarn upgrade left-pad@^1.0.0 - Upgrade a specific package to a specific version
• yarn upgrade left-pad grunt - Upgrade multiple packages to their latest version
• yarn upgrade @angular - Upgrade all packages with the name @angular to their latest version
• yarn upgrade --latest - Upgrade all packages to their latest version
• yarn upgrade left-pad --latest - Upgrade a specific package to its latest version
• yarn upgrade left-pad@^1.0.0 --dev - Upgrade a specific development dependency package to a specific version
• yarn remove left-pad - Removes a specific package

PNPM Commands

• Link to all documentation
• Introduction article

Switching Package Managers

From NPM to Yarn

>

• Install yarn using npm i -g yarn if not already installed
• Go to the directory where you install packages and run the yarn command
• Yarn will init and create its yarn.lock file
• Now delete package-lock.json *Note
• In your package.json file replace all npm commands with yarn in "scripts"
• Run yarn dev or whatever command you use for running a yarn script

*Note: It is important you don't delete it before yarn command (as some people suggest) it can break things, for example your yarn command will not even work and it will throw error: Error: ENOENT: no such file or directory, open './package-lock.json'

References

1. How do I switch from npm to yarn

From Yarn to PNPM

Migrating from yarn to pnpm is quite straightforward:

• Install pnpm npm install -g pnpm if not already installed

• Rename all your yarn commands to pnpm:

  • yarn -> pnpm install
  • yarn test -> pnpm test
  • yarn package -> pnpm package
  • yarn deploy -> pnpm run deploy (run is required here, as pnpm deploy is a reserved command)

• Replace all occurrences of the string yarn.lock in your source files with pnpm-lock.yaml (search, prettier, etc.)

• In your CI/CD, when using actions/setup-node@v3, set cache to 'pnpm'

• If you're using yarn PnP, remove .yarnrc.yml and the .yarn folder

• In the root package.json set the packageManager key to pnpm@<version> (replace <version> with the latest available version)

• Create a pnpm-workspace.yaml file with:

  packages:
  - 'services/*'
  - 'contracts/*'
  - 'packages/*'
  

  and everything that is in the workspaces key of the root package.json

• Run pnpm import to generate a pnpm-lock.yaml from your yarn.lock, then remove yarn.lock

• Run pnpm install

References

1. Swarmion - From Yarn to PNPM