What does is the “exotic” naming in the version of npm packages?

Question

What does it mean the "exotic" naming that appears sometimes in the listing of npm packages on the version, for example in the command npm outdated I get:

Package       Current       Wanted Latest URL
gulp          4.0.0-alpha.2 exotic exotic github:gulpjs/gulp#4.0

thanks

Answer 1

I think it's labeled as "exotic" because it's installed from a GitHub URL, rather than from the npm registry. So it's an "exotic" package, meaning foreign or non-native.

My interpretation is that this is a dev-friendly warning that you are doing something "exotic" and that npm/yarn can't detect for you whether this package has become outdated.

I looked in the npm/npm repo (and some other npm -related repos), but I couldn't find the text exotic , so it must originate from their (private) registry API? I did find some handling of exotic in the yarnpkg/yarn repo though, for reference: https://github.com/yarnpkg/yarn/blob/a3ce7c702f644efde783beb8e0b99dc08100f0df/src/package-request.js#L408