Is it safe to interrupt a running `npm install` with ^C?

Question

By "safe" I mean "easily fixable by running npm install again". I suspect I sometimes have broken installations because I interrupt the process, but have no evidence to confirm that this is the cause.

And, if it is not safe, should I always rm -rf node_modules/ after interrupting npm?

Answer 1

Answer from @zkat on github:

As of npm@3, anything that modifies your node_modules folder (such as npm install) will automatically repair your node_modules/ folder -- so, if you break things with ^C, just rerun npm install and you're good to go!

Answer 2

It's fine to ^C just be sure to do these 2 things after canceling the process.

• rm -rf node_modules/ as you stated, as this will delete all of the existing installs, this prevents a lot of errors.

• npm cache clean just to be certain. This cleans the cache and allows you to do a npm install on a clean slate.

This is a process that you're going to have to do quite a lot, since a lot of weird npm errors will pop up.

Although, there are almost no install errors that these 2 commands can't fix.