[BUG] npm creates its cache directory in my $HOME

[WhyNotHugo]

What / Why

npm keeps creating its cache directory in my $HOME. I keep very few directories in my $HOME to keep things findable, and its very annoying when apps start littering stuff there.

When

Any time I run things like npm install blah.

Where

$ uname -srmo
Linux 5.7.2-arch1-1 x86_64 GNU/Linux

How

Current Behavior

A directory is creted in $HOME and cache data stored in there.

Steps to Reproduce

0. Run rm -rf .cache to delete your existing cache.
1. Navigate to a directory with an existing package.json.
2. Run npm install.

Expected Behavior

The cache directory should be in $XDG_CACHE_HOME on Linux. Specifically, it should be $XDG_CACHE_HOME/npm. $XDG_CACHE_HOME should default to .cache if undefined.

I believe on macOS there's a different spec for default locations, and things like cache are stored in a different place. I don't know the name of the spec so can't easily link in here.

Who

• n/a

References

XDG Base Directory Specification

[WhyNotHugo]

Oh, there's an implementation for nodejs!

[WhyNotHugo]

Not a duplicate. This bug is about the default behaviour being broken (i.e.: placing cache outside of where all application's cache should be).

#1305 is about the behaviour when overriding the default also being broken.

[astier]

npm is one of the few programs which keeps littering my $HOME. Annoying.

[lizzielizzielizzie]

tl;dr: If you are seeing this when running npm ci, you may need to upgrade npm to at least version 6.11.0

---

I've been digging into this issue (or rather, this issue) for some time now. In my case, a package was downloading an additional binary to the directory specified by process.env.npm_config_cache, and if unset, falling back to ~/.npm. The thing was, I had specified a cache directory. So I did some further digging:

Given the following package.json,

{
  "scripts": {
    "install": "node --eval 'console.log(process.env.node_config_cache)'"
  }
}

Running the following:

• npm run-script install: variable was set (note: this runs the script as a script, not the lifecycle hook)
• npm install: variable was set (I wasn't expecting this!)
• npm ci: variable was not set, even though it was run as part of the lifecycle hooks

That lead me to discover this regression. After upgrading to the latest version of npm I no longer have issues with the cache appearing in unexpected places.

[txtsd]

What's the holdup on this? Should be an easy fix to change and prefer a different directory imo.

[darcyclarke]

npm v6 is no longer in active development; We will continue to push security releases to v6 at our team's discretion as-per our Support Policy.

If your bug is reproducible on v7, please re-file this issue using our new issue template.

If your issue was a feature request, please consider opening a new RRFC or RFC. If your issue was a question or other idea that was not CLI-specific, consider opening a discussion on our feedback repo

Closing: This is an automated message.

[WhyNotHugo]

Discussion on this issue has now moved here: npm/rfcs#389