How to update each dependency in package json to the latest version

Question

I copied package json from another project and now want to bump all of the dependencies to their latest versions since this is a fresh project and I don t mind fixing something if it breaks  What s the easiest way to do this  The best way I know is to run npm info express version then update each dependency in package json manually  There must be a better way       quot name quot    quot myproject quot      quot description quot    quot my node project quot      quot version quot    quot 1 0 0 quot      quot engines quot          quot node quot    quot 0 8 4 quot        quot npm quot    quot 1 1 65 quot          quot private quot   true     quot dependencies quot          quot express quot    quot  3 0 3 quot      how do I get these bumped to latest       quot mongodb quot    quot  1 2 5 quot        quot underscore quot    quot  1 4 2 quot        quot rjs quot    quot  2 9 0 quot        quot jade quot    quot  0 27 2 quot        quot async quot    quot  0 1 22 quot          For Yarn specific solutions refer to this SO thread

User · Answer

An automatic update is possible with NPM-script:

{
    "_cmd-update-modules": "npm run devops-update-modules",
    "scripts": {
        "create-global-node-modules-folder": "if not exist \"%appdata%\\npm\\node_modules\" mkdir %appdata%\\npm\\node_modules",
        "npm-i-g": "npm i npm@latest -g",
        "npm-check-i-g": "npm i npm-check@latest -g",
        "eslint-i-g": "npm i eslint@latest -g",
        "npm-check-u-l": "npm-check \"C:\\Program Files\\nodejs\\node_modules\\npm\" -y",
        "npm-check-u-g": "npm-check \"C:\\Program Files\\nodejs\\node_modules\\npm\" -y -g",
        "npm-deep-update-l": "npm update --depth 9999 --dev",
        "npm-deep-update-g": "npm update --depth 9999 --dev -g",
        "npm-cache-clear": "npm cache clear --force",
        "devops-update-modules": "npm run create-global-node-modules-folder && npm run npm-i-g && npm run npm-check-i-g && npm run eslint-i-g && npm run npm-check-u-l && npm run npm-check-u-g && npm run npm-deep-update-l && npm run npm-deep-update-g && npm run npm-cache-clear"
    }
}

For further details and step-by-step manual: https://stackoverflow.com/a/34295664

User · Answer

Here is a basic regex to match semantic version numbers so you can quickly replace them all with an asterisk   Semantic Version Regex     gt   lt         s      d       d          d     How to use  Select the package versions you want to replace in the JSON file     Input the regex above and verify it s matching the correct text     Replace all matches with an asterisk     Run npm update --save

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The only caveat I have found with the best answer above is that it updates the modules to the latest version  This means it could update to an unstable alpha build   I would use that npm-check-updates utility  My group used this tool and it worked effectively by installing the stable updates   As Etienne stated above  install and run with this     npm install -g npm-check-updates   npm-check-updates -u   npm install

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This feature has been introduced in npm v5  update to npm using npm install -g npm latest and   to update package json    delete  node modules and package-lock json  if you have any   run npm update  this will update the dependencies package json to the latest  based on semver     to update to very latest version  you can go with npm-check-updates

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Commands that I had to use to update package json for NPM 3 10 10   npm install -g npm-check-updates ncu -a npm install   Background   I was using the latest command from  josh3736 but my package json was not updated  I then noticed the description text when running npm-check-updates -u      The following dependency is satisfied by its declared version range    but the installed version is behind  You can install the latest   version without modifying your package file by using npm update  If   you want to update the dependency in your package file anyway  run ncu   -a    Reading the documentation for npm-check-updates you can see the difference   https   www npmjs com package npm-check-updates     -u  --upgrade  overwrite package file      -a  --upgradeAll  include even those dependencies whose latest version satisfies the declared semver dependency   ncu is an alias for npm-check-updates as seen in the message when typing npm-check-updates -u    INFO   You can also use ncu as an alias

User · Answer

Greenkeeper if you re using Github  https   greenkeeper io   It s a Github integration and incredibly easy to set things up  When installed  it automatically creates pull requests in repositories you specify  or all if wanted  and keeps your code always up-to-date  without forcing you to do anything manually  PRs should then trigger a build on a CI service and depending on a successful or failed check you can keep figuring out what s triggering the issue or when CI passes simply merge the PR      At the bottom  you can see that the first build failed at first and after a commit   upgrade to node v6 9   the tests pass so I could finally merge the PR  Comes with a lot of emoji  too   Another alternative would be https   dependencyci com   however I didn t test it intensively  After a first look Greenkeeper looks better in general IMO and has better integration

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If you re looking for an easier solution that doesn t involve installing npm packages  I d checkout updatepackagejson com

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If you are using yarn  yarn upgrade-interactive is a really sleek tool that can allow you to view your outdated dependencies and then select which ones you want to update   More reasons to use Yarn over npm  Heh

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Use   as the version for the latest releases  including unstable Use latest as version definition for the latest stable version Modify the package json with exactly the latest stable version number using LatestStablePackages   Here is an example    dependencies              express    latest      using the latest STABLE version          node-gyp    latest               jade    latest           mongoose          using the newest version  may involve the unstable releases          cookie-parser    latest           express-session    latest           body-parser    latest           nodemailer   latest           validator    latest           bcrypt    latest           formidable    latest           path    latest           fs-extra    latest           moment    latest           express-device    latest

User · Answer

If you happen to be using Visual Studio Code as your IDE  this is a fun little extension to make updating package json a one click process   Version Lens

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To update one dependency to its lastest version without having to manually open the package json and change it  you can run npm install  package-name     save flags    i e  npm install express   --save  For reference  npm-install  Update  Recent versions may need latest flag instead  i e  npm install express latest  As noted by user Vespakoen on a rejected edit  it s also possible to update multiple packages at once this way  npm install --save package-nave   other-package   whatever-thing    He also apports a one-liner for the shell based on npm outdated  See the edit for code and explanation   PS  I also hate having to manually edit package json for things like that

User · Answer

The following code  which was accepted  wrote me something like  it takes too long blah-blah  and did nothing  Probably using the global flag was the problem  idk   npm i -g npm-check-updates ncu -u npm install   I decided to use my text editor and follow a semi-manual approach instead   I copied a list like this  just a lot longer  from the dev dependencies of my package json to the notepad   text editor    browserify    10 2 6    expect js     0 3 1    karma     0 13 22    karma-browserify     5 2 0     I set the search mode to regular expression  used the   s              pattern to get the package name and replaced it with npm uninstall  1 --save-dev  nnpm install  1 --save-dev  Clicked on  replace all   The otput was this   npm uninstall browserify --save-dev  npm install browserify --save-dev npm uninstall expect js --save-dev  npm install expect js --save-dev npm uninstall karma --save-dev  npm install karma --save-dev npm uninstall karma-browserify --save-dev  npm install karma-browserify --save-dev   I copied it back to bash and hit enter  Everything was upgraded and working fine  That s all    browserify     16 1 0    expect js     0 3 1    karma     2 0 0    karma-browserify     5 2 0     I don t think it is a big deal  since you have to do it only every now and then  but you can easily write a script  which parses the package json and upgrades your packages  I think it is better this way  because you can edit your list if you need something special  for example keeping the current version of a lib

User · Answer

The very easiest way to do this as of today is use pnpm rather than npm and simply type   pnpm update --latest  https   github com pnpm pnpm releases tag v3 2 0

User · Answer

npm-check-updates is a utility that automatically adjusts a package json with the  latest version of all dependencies  see https   www npmjs org package npm-check-updates    npm install -g npm-check-updates   ncu -u   npm install     EDIT  A slightly less intrusive  avoids a global install  way of doing this if you have a modern version of npm is     npx npm-check-updates -u   npm install

User · Answer

npm outdated  npm update   Should get you the latest wanted versions compatible for your app  But not the latest versions

User · Answer

I use npm-check to achieve this   npm i -g npm npm-check npm-check -ug  to update globals npm-check -u  to update locals     Another useful command list which will keep exact version numbers in package json   npm cache clean rm -rf node modules  npm i -g npm npm-check-updates ncu -g  update globals ncu -ua  update locals npm i

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Alternative is   dependencies         foo      gt  1 4 5      everytime you use npm update   it automatically update to the latest version  For more version syntax  you may check here  https   www npmjs org doc misc semver html

User · Answer

To see which packages have newer versions available  then use the following command   npm outdated   to update just one dependency just use the following command   npm install yourPackage latest --save   For example   My package json file has dependency      progress kendo-angular-dateinputs     1 3 1     then I should write   npm install  progress kendo-angular-dateinputs latest --save

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I solved this by seeing the instructions from https   github com tjunnone npm-check-updates     npm install -g npm-check-updates   ncu   ncu -u   to update all the dependencies to latest   ncu -u  specific module name    in case you want to update specific dependencies to latest

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Updtr      Based on npm outdated  updtr installs the latest version and runs npm test for each dependency  If the test succeeds  updtr saves the new version number to your package json  If the test fails  however  updtr rolls back its changes    https   github com peerigon updtr

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Try following command if you using npm 5 and node 8  npm update --save

User · Answer

This works as of npm 1 3 15    dependencies        foo    latest

User · Answer

Updated for npm v2  npm 2   Node 0 12     npm outdated npm update git commit package-lock json  Ancient npm  circa 2014   npm install -g npm-check-updates npm-check-updates npm shrinkwrap git commit package-lock json  Be sure to shrinkwrap your deps  or you may wind up with a dead project   I pulled out a project the other day and it wouldn t run because my deps were all out of date updated a mess   If I d shrinkwrapped  npm would have installed exactly what I needed   Details For the curious who make it this far  here is what I recommend  Use npm-check-updates or npm outdated to suggest the latest versions     outdated  is part of newer npm versions  2     npm outdated   If you agree  update      npm update          OR    Install and use the  npm-check-updates  package    npm install -g npm-check-updates   Then check your project   npm-check-updates   If you agree  update package json    npm-check-updates -u     Then do a clean install  w o the rm I got some dependency warnings    rm -rf node modules   npm install   Lastly  save exact versions to npm-shrinkwrap json with npm shrinkwrap   rm npm-shrinkwrap json   npm shrinkwrap  Now  npm install will now use exact versions in npm-shrinkwrap json If you check npm-shrinkwrap json into git  all installs will use the exact same versions  This is a way to transition out of development  all updates  all the time  to production  nobody touch nothing    npm outdated  npm-check-updates  npm shrinkwrap   p s  Yarn is sending your package list to Facebook

User · Answer

I really like how npm-upgrade works  It is a simple command line utility that goes through all of your dependencies and lets you see the current version compared to the latest version and update if you want    Here is a screenshot of what happens after running npm-upgrade in the root of your project  next to the package json file      For each dependency you can choose to upgrade  ignore  view the changelog  or finish the process  It has worked great for me so far   EDIT  To be clear this is a third party package that needs to be installed before the command will work  It does not come with npm itself   npm install -g npm-upgrade   Then from the root of a project that has a package json file   npm-upgrade

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If you don t want to install global npm-check-updates you can simply run that   node -e  const pk   JSON parse require  fs   readFileSync  package json    utf-8    require  child process   spawn  npm     install      Object keys Object assign    pk dependencies  pk devDependencies   map a  gt a   latest     stdout on  data   d  gt console log d toString

User · Answer

Looks like npm-check-updates is the only way to make this happen now   npm i -g npm-check-updates ncu -u npm install     On npm  lt 3 11   Simply change every dependency s version to    then run npm update --save    Note  broken in recent  3 11  versions of npm    Before      dependencies          express             mongodb             underscore             rjs             jade             async             After      dependencies          express     3 2 0        mongodb     1 2 14        underscore     1 4 4        rjs     2 10 0        jade     0 29 0        async     0 2 7          Of course  this is the blunt hammer of updating dependencies   It s fine if mdash as you said mdash the project is empty and nothing can break   On the other hand  if you re working in a more mature project  you probably want to verify that there are no breaking changes in your dependencies before upgrading   To see which modules are outdated  just run npm outdated   It will list any installed dependencies that have newer versions available

User · Answer

Solution without additional packages  Change every dependency s version to      dependencies          react             react-google-maps             Then run npm update --save   Some of your packages were updated  but some not    dependencies          react     15 0 1        react-google-maps             This is the tricky part  it means your local version of  react  was lower than the newest one  In this case npm downloaded and updated  react  package  However your local version of  react-google-maps  is the same as the newest one   If you still want to  update  unchanged    you have to delete these modules from node modules folder   e g  delete node modules react-google-maps   Finally run again npm update --save    dependencies          react     15 0 1        react-google-maps     4 10 1        Do not forget to run  npm update --save-dev if you want to update development dependencies

User · Answer

If you want to use a gentle approach via a beautiful  for terminal  interactive reporting interface I would suggest using npm-check     It s less of a hammer and gives you more consequential knowledge of  and control over  your dependency updates   To give you a taste of what awaits here s a screenshot  scraped from the git page for npm-check

User · Answer

I recently had to update several projects that were using npm and package json for their gruntfile js magic  The following bash command  multiline command  worked well for me   npm outdated --json --depth 0     jq --ascii-output --monochrome-output      keys            xargs npm install  1 --save-dev   The idea here  To pipe the npm outdated output as json  to jq  jq is a json command line parser query tool   notice the use of --depth argument for npm outdated  jq will strip the output down to just the top level package name only  finally xargs puts each LIBRARYNAME one at a time into a npm install LIBRARYNAME --save-dev command  The above is what worked for me on a machine runnning  node v0 11 10 osx 10 9 2 npm 1 3 24  this required  xargs http   en wikipedia org wiki Xargs  native to my machine I believe  and jq http   stedolan github io jq   I installed it with brew install jq   Note  I only save the updated libraries to package json inside of the json key devDependancies by using --save-dev  that was a requirement of my projects  quite possible not yours   Afterward I check that everything is gravy with a simple  npm outdated --depth 0   Also  you can check the current toplevel installed library versions with  npm list --depth 0

User · Answer

I found another solution for recent version of NPM  What I want to do is to replace all the     dependencies with the explicit lastest version number  None of the methods discussed has worked for me   What I did    Replace all     with   0 0 0  Run npm-check-updates -u   Everything in package json now is updated to the last version

User · Answer

If you use yarn  the following command updates all packages to their latest version   yarn upgrade --latest  From their docs      The upgrade --latest command upgrades packages the same as the upgrade command  but ignores the version range specified in package json  Instead  the version specified by the latest tag will be used  potentially upgrading the packages across major versions

User · Answer

As of npm version 5 2 0  there is a way to run this in a single line without installing any additional packages to your global npm registry nor locally to your application  This can be done by leveraging the new npx utility that s bundled with npm   Click here to learn more    Run the following command in the root of your project   npx npm-check-updates -u  amp  amp  npm i

User · Answer

The above commands are unsafe because you might break your module when switching versions  Instead I recommend the following   Set actual current node modules version into package json using npm shrinkwrap command  Update each dependency to the latest version IF IT DOES NOT BREAK YOUR TESTS using https   github com bahmutov next-update command line tool    npm install -g next-update    from your package next-update

User · Answer

Use npm outdated to discover dependencies that are out of date   Use npm update to perform safe dependency upgrades   Use npm install  latest to upgrade to the latest major version of a package   Use npx npm-check-updates -u and npm install to upgrade all dependencies to their latest major versions

[node.js] How to update each dependency in package.json to the latest version?

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