What is the npm registry?

The npm registry is the central online repository where public npm packages are stored. An npm client (npm, yarn, pnpm) downloads dependencies from this very store when installing libraries with npm install.

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#Main functions of the npm registry

1. Storing packages Holds hundreds of thousands of JavaScript libraries, from React and Webpack to small utility functions.
2. Publishing your own packages Developers can publish their modules to the registry with the command:

3. Storing versions The registry keeps the full list of versions for every package, which lets you:

• pin dependencies
• roll back to earlier versions
• use semver ranges

4. Metadata The registry holds the description, author, dependencies, license, and other data for every package.

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#How npm interacts with it

When installing a package:

npm sends a request to the registry, downloads the needed version of the archive, unpacks it into node_modules, and updates package-lock.json.

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#Summary

The npm registry is a remote store of every npm package, from which packages are downloaded and to which they are published, giving the JavaScript community a single source of dependencies.