npm ERR! Invalid dependency type requested: alias

Question

Inherited project says to run npm install to install packages for project. But when I do I get the following error:

npm ERR! Invalid dependency type requested: alias

In the log I can see the following messages:

212 silly fetchPackageMetaData error for redux-form-7@npm:[email protected] Invalid dependency type requested: alias

...

2744 verbose stack Error: Invalid dependency type requested: alias

2744 verbose stack at getFetcher (/Users/rich/.nvm/versions/node/v10.15.0/lib/node_modules/npm/node_modules/pacote/lib/fetch.js:68:15)

2744 verbose stack at manifest (/Users/rich/.nvm/versions/node/v10.15.0/lib/node_modules/npm/node_modules/pacote/lib/fetch.js:15:19)

2744 verbose stack at pinflight (/Users/rich/.nvm/versions/node/v10.15.0/lib/node_modules/npm/node_modules/pacote/manifest.js:24:12)

...

In package.json is the following:

{
  "dependencies": {
    "redux-form": "5.3.3",
    "redux-form-7": "npm:[email protected]"
  }
}

I've googled and searched SO but I can't find what this dependency syntax is meant to do or what the error means?

Answer 1

npm >= 6.9.0 can handle aliases, https://npm.community/t/release-npm-6-9-0/5911.

Answer 2

Edit: at the time of writing, this feature was not supported by npm. See Andrew's answer for which versions of npm now support it.

Original answer:

It seems this is a feature of yarn and not npm.

Using yarn to install packages worked fine with this package.json.