---
title: "Hitchhiker's guide to npm"
description: "A simple hello-world packing tutorial for packing nodejs with npm. Practical notes and code examples on Hitchhiker’s guide."
url: "https://h3manth.com/scribe/hitchhikers-guide-to-npm/"
canonical_url: "https://h3manth.com/scribe/hitchhikers-guide-to-npm/"
markdown_url: "https://h3manth.com/scribe/blog/hitchhikers-guide-to-npm.md"
publishDate: "2012-05-30T00:00:00.000Z"
author: "Hemanth HM"
category: "nodejs"
tags: ["javascript","nodejs"]
word_count: 450
reading_time_minutes: 3
x_markdown_tokens: 910
content_signal: "ai-train=yes, search=yes, ai-input=yes"
---

# Hitchhiker's guide to npm

> A simple hello-world packing tutorial for packing nodejs with npm. Practical notes and code examples on Hitchhiker’s guide.

**Hello hackers, this post is just a simple hello-world packing tutorial for packing nodejs with npm.**

P.S: This does not talk about how npm works in depth, but gets one started with npm and assumption is you have dealt with some nodejs and npm installs before!

**First up, if you have not installed node.js and npm (which is bundled with latest version) please do!**

**The below are the steps for packing and publishing packages to npm registry:**

```bash
# mkdir hello-node
# cd hello-node/
# npm adduser hemanth
```

```
Username: hemanth
Password: 
Email: hemanth.hm@gmail.com
npm http PUT https://registry.npmjs.org/-/user/org.couchdb.user:hemanth
npm http 200 https://registry.npmjs.org/-/user/org.couchdb.user:hemanth
```

```bash
# npm init
```

```
Package name: (hello) 
Description: Hello World example for nodejs
Package version: (0.0.0) 
Project homepage: (none) https://www.github.com/hemanth/hello-node
Project git repository: (none) https://www.github.com/hemanth/hello-node.git
Author name: Hemanth.HM
Author email: (none) hemanth.hm@gmail.com
Author url: (none) h3manth.com
Main module/entry point: (none) hello.js
Test command: (none) 
About to write to /home/hemanth/lab/hello-node/package.json
```

```json
{
  "author": "Hemanth.HM <hemanth.hm@gmail.com> (h3manth.com)",
  "name": "hello",
  "description": "Hello World example for nodejs",
  "version": "0.0.0",
  "homepage": "https://www.github.com/hemanth/hello-node",
  "repository": {
    "url": "https://www.github.com/hemanth/hello-node.git"
  },
  "main": "hello.js",
  "dependencies": {},
  "devDependencies": {},
  "optionalDependencies": {},
  "engines": {
    "node": "*"
  }
}
```

```bash
# ls
package.json

# cat > hello.js
```

```javascript
var world = function() { return "Hello World"; }  
exports.world = world
```

```javascript
> require('./hello.js')
{ world: [Function] }

> hello = require('./hello.js')
{ world: [Function] }

> hello.world
[Function]

> hello.world()
'Hello World'
```

```bash
# npm publish
```

That's it! `npm unpublish` to remove your package from the registry.

**Summarizing the steps:**

* `mkdir <package-name>`
* `cd <package-name>`
* `npm adduser <username>`
* `npm init`
* `npm publish`

**A bit of digging into npm -- node package manager:**

> npm is the package manager for the Node JavaScript platform. It puts modules in place so that node can find them, and manages dependency conflicts intelligently.

* **npm-init** → Interactively create a package.json file. Make sure that you provide the Main module/entry point.
* **npm-adduser** → Adds a registry user account.
* **npm-publish** → Publish a package to the registry so that it can be installed by name.
* **npm-unpublish** → To remove the package from the registry.

**Adding dependencies:**

After `npm init` a package.json file will be created in your package directory, open it and look for the dependencies attribute and add the needed dependencies like below:

```json
"dependencies": {
    "request": ">= 1.2.0",
    "xkcd-imgs": ">=1.0.0"
}
```

P.S: The most common mistake would be forgetting the `exports` statement ;)

I think this is enough for starting up, so far was a Hitchhiker's guide to npm, do let me know if something more can be added for one to just get started with npm!