How can I avoid installing devDependencies during production installs in Node.js?

Other Questions NPM
1

Below is a sample package.json:

{
  "project": "demo",
  "version": "1.0",
  "prodDeps": { "moduleLib": "1.0" },
  "devDeps": { "devTool": "1.0" }
}

Running npm install installs all modules. How can I set it to install only production dependencies by default?

2

hey, just use npm install --production or set NODE_ENV=production. it skips the dev dependencies and works pretty well in my experience, no need for extra configs

3

Another approach that has worked well for me is configuring the npm lifecycle scripts to automatically skip dev dependencies. In my projects I adjust the deployment scripts to export NODE_ENV=production so that npm defaults to only installing production modules. This method integrates easily with continuous deployment pipelines, ensuring that the correct dependencies are installed without manual intervention. It’s a reliable solution that has helped streamline the build process and improved overall efficiency on production servers.