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1---
2title: npm-pkg
3section: 1
4description: Manages your package.json
5---
6
7### Synopsis
8
9```bash
10npm pkg set <key>=<value> [<key>=<value> ...]
11npm pkg get [<key> [<key> ...]]
12npm pkg delete <key> [<key> ...]
13npm pkg set [<array>[<index>].<key>=<value> ...]
14npm pkg set [<array>[].<key>=<value> ...]
15npm pkg fix
16```
17
18### Description
19
20A command that automates the management of `package.json` files.
21`npm pkg` provide 3 different sub commands that allow you to modify or retrieve
22values for given object keys in your `package.json`.
23
24The syntax to retrieve and set fields is a dot separated representation of
25the nested object properties to be found within your `package.json`, it's the
26same notation used in [`npm view`](/commands/npm-view) to retrieve information
27from the registry manifest, below you can find more examples on how to use it.
28
29Returned values are always in **json** format.
30
31* `npm pkg get <field>`
32
33    Retrieves a value `key`, defined in your `package.json` file.
34
35    For example, in order to retrieve the name of the current package, you
36    can run:
37
38    ```bash
39    npm pkg get name
40    ```
41
42    It's also possible to retrieve multiple values at once:
43
44    ```bash
45    npm pkg get name version
46    ```
47
48    You can view child fields by separating them with a period. To retrieve
49    the value of a test `script` value, you would run the following command:
50
51    ```bash
52    npm pkg get scripts.test
53    ```
54
55    For fields that are arrays, requesting a non-numeric field will return
56    all of the values from the objects in the list. For example, to get all
57    the contributor emails for a package, you would run:
58
59    ```bash
60    npm pkg get contributors.email
61    ```
62
63    You may also use numeric indices in square braces to specifically select
64    an item in an array field. To just get the email address of the first
65    contributor in the list, you can run:
66
67    ```bash
68    npm pkg get contributors[0].email
69    ```
70
71    For complex fields you can also name a property in square brackets
72    to specifically select a child field. This is especially helpful
73    with the exports object:
74
75    ```bash
76    npm pkg get "exports[.].require"
77    ```
78
79* `npm pkg set <field>=<value>`
80
81    Sets a `value` in your `package.json` based on the `field` value. When
82    saving to your `package.json` file the same set of rules used during
83    `npm install` and other cli commands that touches the `package.json` file
84    are used, making sure to respect the existing indentation and possibly
85    applying some validation prior to saving values to the file.
86
87    The same syntax used to retrieve values from your package can also be used
88    to define new properties or overriding existing ones, below are some
89    examples of how the dot separated syntax can be used to edit your
90    `package.json` file.
91
92    Defining a new bin named `mynewcommand` in your `package.json` that points
93    to a file `cli.js`:
94
95    ```bash
96    npm pkg set bin.mynewcommand=cli.js
97    ```
98
99    Setting multiple fields at once is also possible:
100
101    ```bash
102    npm pkg set description='Awesome package' engines.node='>=10'
103    ```
104
105    It's also possible to add to array values, for example to add a new
106    contributor entry:
107
108    ```bash
109    npm pkg set contributors[0].name='Foo' contributors[0].email='foo@bar.ca'
110    ```
111
112    You may also append items to the end of an array using the special
113    empty bracket notation:
114
115    ```bash
116    npm pkg set contributors[].name='Foo' contributors[].name='Bar'
117    ```
118
119    It's also possible to parse values as json prior to saving them to your
120    `package.json` file, for example in order to set a `"private": true`
121    property:
122
123    ```bash
124    npm pkg set private=true --json
125    ```
126
127    It also enables saving values as numbers:
128
129    ```bash
130    npm pkg set tap.timeout=60 --json
131    ```
132
133* `npm pkg delete <key>`
134
135    Deletes a `key` from your `package.json`
136
137    The same syntax used to set values from your package can also be used
138    to remove existing ones. For example, in order to remove a script named
139    build:
140
141    ```bash
142    npm pkg delete scripts.build
143    ```
144
145* `npm pkg fix`
146
147    Auto corrects common errors in your `package.json`.  npm already
148    does this during `publish`, which leads to subtle (mostly harmless)
149    differences between the contents of your `package.json` file and the
150    manifest that npm uses during installation.
151
152### Workspaces support
153
154You can set/get/delete items across your configured workspaces by using the
155[`workspace`](/using-npm/config#workspace) or
156[`workspaces`](/using-npm/config#workspaces) config options.
157
158For example, setting a `funding` value across all configured workspaces
159of a project:
160
161```bash
162npm pkg set funding=https://example.com --ws
163```
164
165When using `npm pkg get` to retrieve info from your configured workspaces, the
166returned result will be in a json format in which top level keys are the
167names of each workspace, the values of these keys will be the result values
168returned from each of the configured workspaces, e.g:
169
170```
171npm pkg get name version --ws
172{
173  "a": {
174    "name": "a",
175    "version": "1.0.0"
176  },
177  "b": {
178    "name": "b",
179    "version": "1.0.0"
180  }
181}
182```
183
184### Configuration
185
186#### `force`
187
188* Default: false
189* Type: Boolean
190
191Removes various protections against unfortunate side effects, common
192mistakes, unnecessary performance degradation, and malicious input.
193
194* Allow clobbering non-npm files in global installs.
195* Allow the `npm version` command to work on an unclean git repository.
196* Allow deleting the cache folder with `npm cache clean`.
197* Allow installing packages that have an `engines` declaration requiring a
198  different version of npm.
199* Allow installing packages that have an `engines` declaration requiring a
200  different version of `node`, even if `--engine-strict` is enabled.
201* Allow `npm audit fix` to install modules outside your stated dependency
202  range (including SemVer-major changes).
203* Allow unpublishing all versions of a published package.
204* Allow conflicting peerDependencies to be installed in the root project.
205* Implicitly set `--yes` during `npm init`.
206* Allow clobbering existing values in `npm pkg`
207* Allow unpublishing of entire packages (not just a single version).
208
209If you don't have a clear idea of what you want to do, it is strongly
210recommended that you do not use this option!
211
212
213
214#### `json`
215
216* Default: false
217* Type: Boolean
218
219Whether or not to output JSON data, rather than the normal output.
220
221* In `npm pkg set` it enables parsing set values with JSON.parse() before
222  saving them to your `package.json`.
223
224Not supported by all npm commands.
225
226
227
228#### `workspace`
229
230* Default:
231* Type: String (can be set multiple times)
232
233Enable running a command in the context of the configured workspaces of the
234current project while filtering by running only the workspaces defined by
235this configuration option.
236
237Valid values for the `workspace` config are either:
238
239* Workspace names
240* Path to a workspace directory
241* Path to a parent workspace directory (will result in selecting all
242  workspaces within that folder)
243
244When set for the `npm init` command, this may be set to the folder of a
245workspace which does not yet exist, to create the folder and set it up as a
246brand new workspace within the project.
247
248This value is not exported to the environment for child processes.
249
250#### `workspaces`
251
252* Default: null
253* Type: null or Boolean
254
255Set to true to run the command in the context of **all** configured
256workspaces.
257
258Explicitly setting this to false will cause commands like `install` to
259ignore workspaces altogether. When not set explicitly:
260
261- Commands that operate on the `node_modules` tree (install, update, etc.)
262will link workspaces into the `node_modules` folder. - Commands that do
263other things (test, exec, publish, etc.) will operate on the root project,
264_unless_ one or more workspaces are specified in the `workspace` config.
265
266This value is not exported to the environment for child processes.
267## See Also
268
269* [npm install](/commands/npm-install)
270* [npm init](/commands/npm-init)
271* [npm config](/commands/npm-config)
272* [npm set-script](/commands/npm-set-script)
273* [workspaces](/using-npm/workspaces)
274