Suggest an editImprove this articleRefine the answer for “What is the npm registry?”. Your changes go to moderation before they’re published.Approval requiredContentWhat you’re changing🇺🇸EN🇺🇦UAPreviewTitle (EN)Short answer (EN)**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`. **Key point:** the registry keeps the full version history of every package, which lets you pin dependencies and roll back to earlier versions.Shown above the full answer for quick recall.Answer (EN)Image**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`. --- ### 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: ```bash npm publish ``` 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. --- ### How npm interacts with it When installing a package: ```bash npm install lodash ``` npm sends a request to the registry, downloads the needed version of the archive, unpacks it into `node_modules`, and updates `package-lock.json`. --- ### 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.For the reviewerNote to the moderator (optional)Visible only to the moderator. Helps review go faster.