--- title: "Terminal: npm" description: "Notice: This is a little \"terminal treat\" – a short tip rather than a whole article. Enjoy!" date: 2026-05-11 canonical_url: "https://christofersandin.com/texts/npm" section: "Texts" --- # Terminal: npm **Notice: This is a little "terminal treat" – a short tip rather than a whole article. Enjoy!** **Working in the terminal with web development, you’ll likely be running into Node and the Node Package Manager (npm) sooner or later. It’s a standardized way to install and use JavaScript-based software — here’s a summary of some useful commands.** Packages can be installed globally or per project. ## Global packages - List all globally installed packages `npm list -g --depth=0` - You can check for a particular module installed globally. This is particularly useful when checking what version of a module you are using globally (remove the `-g` flag if checking a local module): `npm list -g --depth=0 | grep ` ## Packages - If you’d like to see all available (remote) versions for a particular module, then do: `npm view versions`. Note that *versions* is in the plural. This will give you a complete listing of versions to choose from. - For the latest remote version: `npm view version` Note that the *version* is singular. - To find out which packages need to be updated, you can use `npm outdated -g --depth=0` - To update global packages, you can use `npm install -g ` - To update all global packages, you can use: `npm update -g` Another way would be to use `npm-check-updates` (or `ncu` for short). ## References - [Node](https://nodejs.org/) - [npm](https://www.npmjs.com/) - [npm-check-updates](https://www.npmjs.com/package/npm-check-updates) - [npm-outdated](https://docs.npmjs.com/cli/v11/commands/npm-outdated/) in the official npm Docs - [Updating packages downloaded from the registry](https://docs.npmjs.com/updating-packages-downloaded-from-the-registry/) in the official npm Docs - [npm cheatsheet](https://devhints.io/npm) by devhints.io - [Better NPM’ing, Tips and Tricks using NPM](http://www.tomsquest.com/blog/2018/10/better-npm-ing) by Tom’s Quest --- ## Metadata [\#terminal-treats](/writing/terminal-treats) Published . Last modified . 3 7 10 256