`npm build` doesn't run the script named "build" in package.json

Question

For a new module I'm trying to use npm build without gulp / Grunt / other specialised build tools.

"scripts": {
  "build": "node build.js"
},

My build.js is simply

console.log('Hello')

However, running

npm build

Simply exits without printing anything, with a status of 0.

Running:

npm install

Also does all the normal things, but does not run build.js either.

How can I make npm run my build script?

Edit: even simple bash commands don't seem to work, eg

"scripts": {
    "build": "touch TESTFILE"
},

Doesn't make a file with that name.

Solution 1

Unfortunately npm build is already an internal command, as described in the docs:

This is the plumbing command called by npm link and npm install. It should generally not be called directly.

Because that command already exists, it always shadows over your "build": "node build.js".

The fully-qualified way to run your own script is with run-script or its alias run:

$ npm run build

npm start and others are the short-hand way, but is only an option when an existing npm command doesn't shadow it, like npm build does.

---

For posterity (as others have mentioned) npm build is used by npm to build native C/C++ Node addons using node-gyp.

Solution 2

The script named as "build" in package.json is not special in any way. The only way to get it to run is to call:

npm run-script build

There are some names which are called automatically by npm, but "build" is not one of them. The full list is:

• prepublish, publish, postpublish
• preinstall, install, postinstall
• preuninstall, uninstall, postuninstall
• preversion, version, postversion
• pretest, test, posttest
• prestop, stop, poststop
• prestart, start, poststart
• prerestart, restart, postrestart
• preCUSTOM and postCUSTOM for custom script names.

Solution 3

OK, to run a build on it's own, use:

npm run-script build

Solution 4

Npm build expects

A folder containing a package.json file in its root

Try using npm scripts in your package.json, like the classic npm start

Solution 5

I had a problem with npm run build not printing anything. ended up using npm run build --verbose to get the output I needed.

View more solutions

Comments

[Zaz]

Workaround: use install instead.

[Emobe]

This is basically a huge and unintuitive annoyance of NPM and is one of the reasons I continue to use Yarn. With yarn, I can run any custom script just as a parameter i.e yarn storybook will run the storybook script. In NPM I have to do npm run storybook and on top of that, if I wish to pass any parameters through npm, it requires -- before it, so when comparing yarn storybook --ci to npm run storybook -- --ci, it's a no-brainer to me.

[Jakub Miziołek]

Some packages require a build process. When you're running npm install and npm finds a package that has C/C++ bindings or generally sth that needs node-gyp to run then it start npm build. You can rebuild those packages by simply running npm build alone.

[Pawel]

internal command should be renamed to _build and npm build shuould be a shortcut like npm start and npm test

[aaaidan]

I understand that npm build won't call my script, and that it's used to build compiled components of a package. I'm still unsure how it goes about doing that: what files does it look for, etc?

[grantwparks]

This of course makes sense, until you look at the docs reference and see that "start" is also listed. yet, if I take out my "start" script from package.json, it doesn't know what to do.

[Frank Nocke]

If I was to write a package myself, it would still be nice to know, what to do to fill npm build with meaning...

[Erhhung]

What this means is that npm build . should work, and, in my case, npm does execute the "build" script in my "package.json" as I hoped.