npm-cache.md 2.7 KB
section: cli-commands title: npm-cache
description: Manipulates packages cache
npm-cache(1)
Manipulates packages cache
Synopsis
npm cache add <tarball file>
npm cache add <folder>
npm cache add <tarball url>
npm cache add <name>@<version>
npm cache clean [<path>]
aliases: npm cache clear, npm cache rm
npm cache verify
Description
Used to add, list, or clean the npm cache folder.
add: Add the specified package to the local cache. This command is primarily intended to be used internally by npm, but it can provide a way to add data to the local installation cache explicitly.
clean: Delete all data out of the cache folder.
verify: Verify the contents of the cache folder, garbage collecting any unneeded data, and verifying the integrity of the cache index and all cached data.
Details
npm stores cache data in an opaque directory within the configured cache,
named _cacache. This directory is a cacache-based content-addressable cache
that stores all http request data as well as other package-related data. This
directory is primarily accessed through pacote, the library responsible for
all package fetching as of npm@5.
All data that passes through the cache is fully verified for integrity on both
insertion and extraction. Cache corruption will either trigger an error, or
signal to pacote that the data must be refetched, which it will do
automatically. For this reason, it should never be necessary to clear the cache
for any reason other than reclaiming disk space, thus why clean now requires
--force to run.
There is currently no method exposed through npm to inspect or directly manage
the contents of this cache. In order to access it, cacache must be used
directly.
npm will not remove data by itself: the cache will grow as new packages are installed.
A note about the cache's design
The npm cache is strictly a cache: it should not be relied upon as a persistent and reliable data store for package data. npm makes no guarantee that a previously-cached piece of data will be available later, and will automatically delete corrupted contents. The primary guarantee that the cache makes is that, if it does return data, that data will be exactly the data that was inserted.
To run an offline verification of existing cache contents, use npm cache
verify.
Configuration
cache
Default: ~/.npm on Posix, or %AppData%/npm-cache on Windows.
The root cache folder.