how to reduce node_modules in npm

Question

when i start a project i always use npm and every start i will use

npm install

and will make node_modules directory inside.

When finished making the project I was surprised by the size of the file is almost 200Mb. Imagine if creating more projects. My disk capacity will be burdened.

project capacity

Is there any way to prevent/reduce the size on my project folder. For example make one file node_modules to be used repeatedly?

Answer 1

Using --save and --save-dev when adding dependencies will make your project more size-aware. For development size is "fine" but for production, npm will only install what ever is in dependencies of your package.json thus decreasing your node_modules size (in production).

Otherwise npm prune is a great way to clean up unused modules further decreasing the size of your project. Other than that being aware of which modules you install will be the only sure-fire way of decreasing project size.