npm-pkg(1) npm-pkg(1)
NAME
npm-pkg - Manages your package.json
Synopsis
npm pkg set <key>=<value> [<key>=<value> ...]
npm pkg get [<key> [<key> ...]]
npm pkg delete <key> [<key> ...]
npm pkg set [<array>[<index>].<key>=<value> ...]
npm pkg set [<array>[].<key>=<value> ...]
npm pkg fix
Description
A command that automates the management of package.json files. npm pkg
provide 3 different sub commands that allow you to modify or retrieve
values for given object keys in your package.json.
The syntax to retrieve and set fields is a dot separated representation
of the nested object properties to be found within your package.json,
it's the same notation used in npm help view to retrieve information
from the registry manifest, below you can find more examples on how to
use it.
Returned values are always in json format.
o npm pkg get <field>
Retrieves a value key, defined in your package.json file.
For example, in order to retrieve the name of the current package, you
can run:
npm pkg get name
It's also possible to retrieve multiple values at once:
npm pkg get name version
You can view child fields by separating them with a period. To retrieve
the value of a test script value, you would run the following command:
npm pkg get scripts.test
For fields that are arrays, requesting a non-numeric field will return
all of the values from the objects in the list. For example, to get all
the contributor emails for a package, you would run:
npm pkg get contributors.email
You may also use numeric indices in square braces to specifically
select an item in an array field. To just get the email address of the
first contributor in the list, you can run:
npm pkg get contributors[0].email
For complex fields you can also name a property in square brackets to
specifically select a child field. This is especially helpful with the
exports object:
npm pkg get "exports[.].require"
o npm pkg set <field>=<value>
Sets a value in your package.json based on the field value. When saving
to your package.json file the same set of rules used during npm install
and other cli commands that touches the package.json file are used,
making sure to respect the existing indentation and possibly applying
some validation prior to saving values to the file.
The same syntax used to retrieve values from your package can also be
used to define new properties or overriding existing ones, below are
some examples of how the dot separated syntax can be used to edit your
package.json file.
Defining a new bin named mynewcommand in your package.json that points
to a file cli.js:
npm pkg set bin.mynewcommand=cli.js
Setting multiple fields at once is also possible:
npm pkg set description='Awesome package' engines.node='>=10'
It's also possible to add to array values, for example to add a new
contributor entry:
npm pkg set contributors[0].name='Foo' contributors[0].email='foo@bar.ca'
You may also append items to the end of an array using the special
empty bracket notation:
npm pkg set contributors[].name='Foo' contributors[].name='Bar'
It's also possible to parse values as json prior to saving them to your
package.json file, for example in order to set a "private": true
property:
npm pkg set private=true --json
It also enables saving values as numbers:
npm pkg set tap.timeout=60 --json
o npm pkg delete <key>
Deletes a key from your package.json
The same syntax used to set values from your package can also be used
to remove existing ones. For example, in order to remove a script named
build:
npm pkg delete scripts.build
o npm pkg fix
Auto corrects common errors in your package.json. npm already does this
during publish, which leads to subtle (mostly harmless) differences
between the contents of your package.json file and the manifest that
npm uses during installation.
Workspaces support
You can set/get/delete items across your configured workspaces by using
the workspace </using-npm/config#workspace> or workspaces </using-
npm/config#workspaces> config options.
For example, setting a funding value across all configured workspaces
of a project:
npm pkg set funding=https://example.com --ws
When using npm pkg get to retrieve info from your configured
workspaces, the returned result will be in a json format in which top
level keys are the names of each workspace, the values of these keys
will be the result values returned from each of the configured
workspaces, e.g:
npm pkg get name version --ws
{
"a": {
"name": "a",
"version": "1.0.0"
},
"b": {
"name": "b",
"version": "1.0.0"
}
}
Configuration
force
o Default: false
o Type: Boolean
Removes various protections against unfortunate side effects, common
mistakes, unnecessary performance degradation, and malicious input.
o Allow clobbering non-npm files in global installs.
o Allow the npm version command to work on an unclean git repository.
o Allow deleting the cache folder with npm cache clean.
o Allow installing packages that have an engines declaration
requiring a different version of npm.
o Allow installing packages that have an engines declaration
requiring a different version of node, even if --engine-strict is
enabled.
o Allow npm audit fix to install modules outside your stated
dependency range (including SemVer-major changes).
o Allow unpublishing all versions of a published package.
o Allow conflicting peerDependencies to be installed in the root
project.
o Implicitly set --yes during npm init.
o Allow clobbering existing values in npm pkg
o Allow unpublishing of entire packages (not just a single version).
If you don't have a clear idea of what you want to do, it is strongly
recommended that you do not use this option!
json
o Default: false
o Type: Boolean
Whether or not to output JSON data, rather than the normal output.
o In npm pkg set it enables parsing set values with JSON.parse()
before saving them to your package.json.
Not supported by all npm commands.
workspace
o Default:
o Type: String (can be set multiple times)
Enable running a command in the context of the configured workspaces of
the current project while filtering by running only the workspaces
defined by this configuration option.
Valid values for the workspace config are either:
o Workspace names
o Path to a workspace directory
o Path to a parent workspace directory (will result in selecting all
workspaces within that folder)
When set for the npm init command, this may be set to the folder of a
workspace which does not yet exist, to create the folder and set it up
as a brand new workspace within the project.
This value is not exported to the environment for child processes.
workspaces
o Default: null
o Type: null or Boolean
Set to true to run the command in the context of all configured
workspaces.
Explicitly setting this to false will cause commands like install to
ignore workspaces altogether. When not set explicitly:
o Commands that operate on the node_modules tree (install, update,
etc.) will link workspaces into the node_modules folder. - Commands
that do other things (test, exec, publish, etc.) will operate on
the root project, unless one or more workspaces are specified in
the workspace config.
This value is not exported to the environment for child processes.
SEE ALSO
o npm help install
o npm help init
o npm help config
o npm help workspaces
NPM@11.6.1 September 2025 npm-pkg(1)
npm 11.6.1 - Generated Sun Sep 28 18:26:46 CDT 2025