If I do an NPM install with “npm install --save-dev” how can I check for updates

Question

If I install a number of different packages from what I understand using --save-dev will create a local package.json file listing these.

Is there some way using npm (or Webstorm IDE) that I can check these packages to see if any of them have been updated and then download later versions?

Answer 1

all --save-dev will do is augment your existing package.json file with a key of

"devDependencies": {

}

This will keep the dependencies at the project level, instead of global requirement, when you npm install.

If you want to update your dependency list you can simply use 'npm update', if you want to update a specfic package use 'npm update' with the module name. If you wish to see which packages have an update use 'npm outdated'

https://www.npmjs.org/doc/cli/npm-update.html
https://www.npmjs.org/doc/cli/npm-outdated.html