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I Used npm Wrong for Years
AI knows npm install. What about the rest?
For years, I knew exactly three npm commands. npm install, npm run dev, and npm install again when something broke.
That third one is the giveaway.
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When npm did something I didn’t understand, I didn’t have a command to find out why. I deleted node_modules and tried again.
Sometimes it worked. Sometimes it didn’t. But I rarely understood what had gone wrong.
AI coding agents mostly work the same way now. They run npm install, and when it errors, the common suggestion is --force or --legacy-peer-deps.
It usually makes the error go away. It rarely tells you what was wrong.
These are the npm commands I learned late, grouped by the problem each one solves.
If you only skim, take three: npm ci for builds, npm explain for “why is this installed?”, and overrides for fixing a dependency you don’t control.
npm ci: the install your builds should use
npm ciI used to run npm install everywhere, including production builds.
