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132npm command-line interface
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137<section id="content">
138<header class="title">
139<h1 id="npm-explain">npm-explain</h1>
140<span class="description">Explain installed packages</span>
141</header>
142
143<section id="table_of_contents">
144<h2 id="table-of-contents">Table of contents</h2>
145<div id="_table_of_contents"><ul><li><a href="#synopsis">Synopsis</a></li><li><a href="#description">Description</a></li><li><a href="#configuration">Configuration</a></li><ul><li><a href="#json"><code>json</code></a></li><li><a href="#workspace"><code>workspace</code></a></li></ul><li><a href="#see-also">See Also</a></li></ul></div>
146</section>
147
148<div id="_content"><h3 id="synopsis">Synopsis</h3>
149<pre><code class="language-bash">npm explain &lt;package-spec&gt;
150
151alias: why
152</code></pre>
153<h3 id="description">Description</h3>
154<p>This command will print the chain of dependencies causing a given package
155to be installed in the current project.</p>
156<p>If one or more package specs are provided, then only packages matching
157one of the specifiers will have their relationships explained.</p>
158<p>The package spec can also refer to a folder within <code>./node_modules</code></p>
159<p>For example, running <code>npm explain glob</code> within npm's source tree will show:</p>
160<pre><code class="language-bash">glob@7.1.6
161node_modules/glob
162  glob@"^7.1.4" from the root project
163
164glob@7.1.1 dev
165node_modules/tacks/node_modules/glob
166  glob@"^7.0.5" from rimraf@2.6.2
167  node_modules/tacks/node_modules/rimraf
168    rimraf@"^2.6.2" from tacks@1.3.0
169    node_modules/tacks
170      dev tacks@"^1.3.0" from the root project
171</code></pre>
172<p>To explain just the package residing at a specific folder, pass that as the
173argument to the command.  This can be useful when trying to figure out
174exactly why a given dependency is being duplicated to satisfy conflicting
175version requirements within the project.</p>
176<pre><code class="language-bash">$ npm explain node_modules/nyc/node_modules/find-up
177find-up@3.0.0 dev
178node_modules/nyc/node_modules/find-up
179  find-up@"^3.0.0" from nyc@14.1.1
180  node_modules/nyc
181    nyc@"^14.1.1" from tap@14.10.8
182    node_modules/tap
183      dev tap@"^14.10.8" from the root project
184</code></pre>
185<h3 id="configuration">Configuration</h3>
186<h4 id="json"><code>json</code></h4>
187<ul>
188<li>Default: false</li>
189<li>Type: Boolean</li>
190</ul>
191<p>Whether or not to output JSON data, rather than the normal output.</p>
192<ul>
193<li>In <code>npm pkg set</code> it enables parsing set values with JSON.parse() before
194saving them to your <code>package.json</code>.</li>
195</ul>
196<p>Not supported by all npm commands.</p>
197<h4 id="workspace"><code>workspace</code></h4>
198<ul>
199<li>Default:</li>
200<li>Type: String (can be set multiple times)</li>
201</ul>
202<p>Enable running a command in the context of the configured workspaces of the
203current project while filtering by running only the workspaces defined by
204this configuration option.</p>
205<p>Valid values for the <code>workspace</code> config are either:</p>
206<ul>
207<li>Workspace names</li>
208<li>Path to a workspace directory</li>
209<li>Path to a parent workspace directory (will result in selecting all
210workspaces within that folder)</li>
211</ul>
212<p>When set for the <code>npm init</code> command, this may be set to the folder of a
213workspace which does not yet exist, to create the folder and set it up as a
214brand new workspace within the project.</p>
215<p>This value is not exported to the environment for child processes.</p>
216<h3 id="see-also">See Also</h3>
217<ul>
218<li><a href="../using-npm/package-spec.html">package spec</a></li>
219<li><a href="../commands/npm-config.html">npm config</a></li>
220<li><a href="../configuring-npm/npmrc.html">npmrc</a></li>
221<li><a href="../configuring-npm/folders.html">npm folders</a></li>
222<li><a href="../commands/npm-ls.html">npm ls</a></li>
223<li><a href="../commands/npm-install.html">npm install</a></li>
224<li><a href="../commands/npm-link.html">npm link</a></li>
225<li><a href="../commands/npm-prune.html">npm prune</a></li>
226<li><a href="../commands/npm-outdated.html">npm outdated</a></li>
227<li><a href="../commands/npm-update.html">npm update</a></li>
228</ul></div>
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