node.jsnpmnpm-install

How to npm install to only save dependency to package.json?


I'm adding dependencies to a package.json that will be used as part of a provisioning process for a virtual machine. As such, I don't actually need to install the modules locally since the provisioner will do that for me inside the VM. So is there any way to do the following:

npm install --save <module>

So that it only creates a dependency for the latest version of the module in package.json without actually downloading the module or creating a node_modules folder?

The --dry-run option is close, as it doesn't create a node_modules folder but it also doesn't write to package.json either.

For now, I'm manually doing the following each time I need to update packages before re-provisioning the VM:

rm -rf node_modules

Other reasons for this might include being able to easily build a package.json file in low-bandwidth situations such as tethering, where you know you'll need the module eventually but don't want to spare the bandwidth.


Solution

  • There is no way to do that with npm that I'm aware of.

    There are two npm packages for doing this; I've never used either of them, but they might be worth a try:

    Hope this helps!