scope(7) scope(7)
NAME
scope - 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, scopes are
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.
Each npm user/organization has their own scope, and only you can add
packages in your scope. This means you don't have to worry about
someone taking your package name ahead of you. Thus it is also a good
way to signal official packages for organizations.
Scoped packages can be published and installed as of npm@2 and are
supported by the primary npm registry. Unscoped packages can depend on
scoped packages and vice versa. The npm client is backwards-compatible
with unscoped registries, so it can be used to work with scoped and
unscoped 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 installed 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 installed 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 help install.
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
simply requires the mypackage module in the folder named @myorg.
Publishing scoped packages
Scoped packages can be published from the CLI as of npm@2 and can be
published to any registry that supports them, including the primary npm
registry.
(As of 2015-04-19, and with npm 2.0 or better, the primary npm registry
does support scoped packages.)
If you wish, you may associate a scope with a registry; see below.
Publishing public scoped packages to the primary npm registry
Publishing to a scope, you have two options:
o Publishing to your user scope (example: @username/module)
o Publishing to an organization scope (example: @org/module)
If publishing a public module to an organization scope, you must first
either create an organization with the name of the scope that you'd
like to publish to or be added to an existing organization with the
appropriate permissions. For example, if you'd like to publish to @org,
you would need to create the org organization on npmjs.com prior to
trying to publish.
Scoped packages are not public by default. You will need to specify
--access public with the initial npm publish command. This will publish
the package and set access to public as if you had run npm access
public after publishing. You do not need to do this when publishing new
versions of an existing scoped package.
Publishing private scoped packages to the npm registry
To publish a private scoped package to the npm registry, you must have
an npm Private Modules <https://docs.npmjs.com/private-modules/intro>
account.
You can then publish the module with npm publish or npm publish
--access restricted, and it will be present in the npm registry, with
restricted access. You can then change the access permissions, if
desired, with npm access or on the npmjs.com website.
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 primary npm registry and one
or more private registries, such as GitHub Packages
<https://github.com/features/packages> or the open source Verdaccio
<https://verdaccio.org> project.
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.
See also
o npm help install
o npm help publish
o npm help access
o npm help registry
February 2024 scope(7)
npm 10.5.0 - Generated Thu Feb 29 07:29:01 CST 2024