| .TH "NPM-EXPLAIN" "1" "April 2026" "NPM@11.13.0" "" | |
| .SH "NAME" | |
| \fBnpm-explain\fR - Explain installed packages | |
| .SS "Synopsis" | |
| .P | |
| .RS 2 | |
| .nf | |
| npm explain <package-spec> | |
| alias: why | |
| .fi | |
| .RE | |
| .SS "Description" | |
| .P | |
| This command will print the chain of dependencies causing a given package to be installed in the current project. | |
| .P | |
| If one or more package specs are provided, then only packages matching one of the specifiers will have their relationships explained. | |
| .P | |
| The package spec can also refer to a folder within \fB./node_modules\fR | |
| .P | |
| For example, running \fBnpm explain glob\fR within npm's source tree will show: | |
| .P | |
| .RS 2 | |
| .nf | |
| glob@7.1.6 | |
| node_modules/glob | |
| glob@"^7.1.4" from the root project | |
| glob@7.1.1 dev | |
| node_modules/tacks/node_modules/glob | |
| glob@"^7.0.5" from rimraf@2.6.2 | |
| node_modules/tacks/node_modules/rimraf | |
| rimraf@"^2.6.2" from tacks@1.3.0 | |
| node_modules/tacks | |
| dev tacks@"^1.3.0" from the root project | |
| .fi | |
| .RE | |
| .P | |
| To explain just the package residing at a specific folder, pass that as the argument to the command. This can be useful when trying to figure out exactly why a given dependency is being duplicated to satisfy conflicting version requirements within the project. | |
| .P | |
| .RS 2 | |
| .nf | |
| $ npm explain node_modules/nyc/node_modules/find-up | |
| find-up@3.0.0 dev | |
| node_modules/nyc/node_modules/find-up | |
| find-up@"^3.0.0" from nyc@14.1.1 | |
| node_modules/nyc | |
| nyc@"^14.1.1" from tap@14.10.8 | |
| node_modules/tap | |
| dev tap@"^14.10.8" from the root project | |
| .fi | |
| .RE | |
| .SS "Configuration" | |
| .SS "\fBjson\fR" | |
| .RS 0 | |
| .IP \(bu 4 | |
| Default: false | |
| .IP \(bu 4 | |
| Type: Boolean | |
| .RE 0 | |
| .P | |
| Whether or not to output JSON data, rather than the normal output. | |
| .RS 0 | |
| .IP \(bu 4 | |
| In \fBnpm pkg set\fR it enables parsing set values with JSON.parse() before saving them to your \fBpackage.json\fR. | |
| .RE 0 | |
| .P | |
| Not supported by all npm commands. | |
| .SS "\fBworkspace\fR" | |
| .RS 0 | |
| .IP \(bu 4 | |
| Default: | |
| .IP \(bu 4 | |
| Type: String (can be set multiple times) | |
| .RE 0 | |
| .P | |
| 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. | |
| .P | |
| Valid values for the \fBworkspace\fR config are either: | |
| .RS 0 | |
| .IP \(bu 4 | |
| Workspace names | |
| .IP \(bu 4 | |
| Path to a workspace directory | |
| .IP \(bu 4 | |
| Path to a parent workspace directory (will result in selecting all workspaces within that folder) | |
| .RE 0 | |
| .P | |
| When set for the \fBnpm init\fR 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. | |
| .P | |
| This value is not exported to the environment for child processes. | |
| .SS "See Also" | |
| .RS 0 | |
| .IP \(bu 4 | |
| npm help "package spec" | |
| .IP \(bu 4 | |
| npm help config | |
| .IP \(bu 4 | |
| npm help npmrc | |
| .IP \(bu 4 | |
| npm help folders | |
| .IP \(bu 4 | |
| npm help ls | |
| .IP \(bu 4 | |
| npm help install | |
| .IP \(bu 4 | |
| npm help link | |
| .IP \(bu 4 | |
| npm help prune | |
| .IP \(bu 4 | |
| npm help outdated | |
| .IP \(bu 4 | |
| npm help update | |
| .RE 0 | |