NPM-OUTDATED

Section: (1)
Updated: November 2016
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NAME

npm-outdated - Check for outdated packages

SYNOPSIS

npm outdated [[<@scope>/]<pkg> ...]

DESCRIPTION

This command will check the registry to see if any (or, specific) installed packages are currently outdated.

In the output:

•: wanted is the maximum version of the package that satisfies the semver range specified in package.json. If there's no available semver range (i.e. you're running npm outdated --global, or the package isn't included in package.json), then wanted shows the currently-installed version.
•: latest is the version of the package tagged as latest in the registry. Running npm publish with no special configuration will publish the package with a dist-tag of latest. This may or may not be the maximum version of the package, or the most-recently published version of the package, depending on how the package's developer manages the latest npm help dist-tag.
•: location is where in the dependency tree the package is located. Note that npm outdated defaults to a depth of 0, so unless you override that, you'll always be seeing only top-level dependencies that are outdated.
•: package type (when using --long / -l) tells you whether this package is a dependency or a devDependency. Packages not included in package.json are always marked dependencies.

An example

$ npm outdated
Package      Current   Wanted   Latest  Location
glob          5.0.15   5.0.15    6.0.1  test-outdated-output
nothingness    0.0.3      git      git  test-outdated-output
npm            3.5.1    3.5.2    3.5.1  test-outdated-output
local-dev      0.0.3   linked   linked  test-outdated-output
once           1.3.2    1.3.3    1.3.3  test-outdated-output

With these dependencies:

{
  "glob": "^5.0.15",
  "nothingness": "github:othiym23/nothingness#master",
  "npm": "^3.5.1",
  "once": "^1.3.1"
}

A few things to note:

•: glob requires ^5, which prevents npm from installing glob@6, which is outside the semver range.
•: Git dependencies will always be reinstalled, because of how they're specified. The installed committish might satisfy the dependency specifier (if it's something immutable, like a commit SHA), or it might not, so npm outdated and npm update have to fetch Git repos to check. This is why currently doing a reinstall of a Git dependency always forces a new clone and install.
•: npm@3.5.2 is marked as "wanted", but "latest" is npm@3.5.1 because npm uses dist-tags to manage its latest and next release channels. npm update will install the newest version, but npm install npm (with no semver range) will install whatever's tagged as latest.
•: once is just plain out of date. Reinstalling node_modules from scratch or running npm update will bring it up to spec.