--- title: npm-ls section: 1 description: List installed packages --- ### Synopsis <!-- AUTOGENERATED USAGE DESCRIPTIONS --> ### Description This command will print to stdout all the versions of packages that are installed, as well as their dependencies when `--all` is specified, in a tree structure. Note: to get a "bottoms up" view of why a given package is included in the tree at all, use [`npm explain`](/commands/npm-explain). Positional arguments are `name@version-range` identifiers, which will limit the results to only the paths to the packages named. Note that nested packages will *also* show the paths to the specified packages. For example, running `npm ls promzard` in npm's source tree will show: ```bash npm@@VERSION@ /path/to/npm └─┬ init-package-json@0.0.4 └── promzard@0.1.5 ``` It will print out extraneous, missing, and invalid packages. If a project specifies git urls for dependencies these are shown in parentheses after the `name@version` to make it easier for users to recognize potential forks of a project. The tree shown is the logical dependency tree, based on package dependencies, not the physical layout of your `node_modules` folder. When run as `ll` or `la`, it shows extended information by default. ### Note: Design Changes Pending The `npm ls` command's output and behavior made a _ton_ of sense when npm created a `node_modules` folder that naively nested every dependency. In such a case, the logical dependency graph and physical tree of packages on disk would be roughly identical. With the advent of automatic install-time deduplication of dependencies in npm v3, the `ls` output was modified to display the logical dependency graph as a tree structure, since this was more useful to most users. However, without using `npm ls -l`, it became impossible to show _where_ a package was actually installed much of the time! With the advent of automatic installation of `peerDependencies` in npm v7, this gets even more curious, as `peerDependencies` are logically "underneath" their dependents in the dependency graph, but are always physically at or above their location on disk. Also, in the years since npm got an `ls` command (in version 0.0.2!), dependency graphs have gotten much larger as a general rule. Therefore, in order to avoid dumping an excessive amount of content to the terminal, `npm ls` now only shows the _top_ level dependencies, unless `--all` is provided. A thorough re-examination of the use cases, intention, behavior, and output of this command, is currently underway. Expect significant changes to at least the default human-readable `npm ls` output in npm v8. ### Configuration <!-- AUTOGENERATED CONFIG DESCRIPTIONS --> ### See Also * [package spec](/using-npm/package-spec) * [npm explain](/commands/npm-explain) * [npm config](/commands/npm-config) * [npmrc](/configuring-npm/npmrc) * [npm folders](/configuring-npm/folders) * [npm explain](/commands/npm-explain) * [npm install](/commands/npm-install) * [npm link](/commands/npm-link) * [npm prune](/commands/npm-prune) * [npm outdated](/commands/npm-outdated) * [npm update](/commands/npm-update)
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