Synopsis

npm start [-- <args>]

Description

This runs a predefined command specified in the "start" property of a package’s "scripts" object.

If the "scripts" object does not define a "start" property, npm will run node server.js.

Note that this is different from the default node behavior of running the file specified in a package’s "main" attribute when evoking with node .

As of npm@2.0.0, you can use custom arguments when executing scripts. Refer to npm run-script for more details.

Example

{
  "scripts": {
    "start": "node foo.js"
  }
}

npm start

> npm@x.x.x start
> node foo.js

(foo.js output would be here)

Configuration

ignore-scripts

• Default: false
• Type: Boolean

If true, npm does not run scripts specified in package.json files.

Note that commands explicitly intended to run a particular script, such as npm start, npm stop, npm restart, npm test, and npm run-script will still run their intended script if ignore-scripts is set, but they will not run any pre- or post-scripts.

script-shell

• Default: ‘/bin/sh’ on POSIX systems, ‘cmd.exe’ on Windows
• Type: null or String

The shell to use for scripts run with the npm exec, npm run and npm init <package-spec> commands.

See Also

• npm run-script
• npm scripts
• npm test
• npm restart
• npm stop