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npm gets its configuration values from the following sources, sorted by priority:
Putting --foo bar on the command line sets the foo configuration parameter to "bar". A -- argument tells the cli parser to stop reading flags. Using --flag without specifying any value will set the value to true.
Example: --flag1 --flag2 will set both configuration parameters to true, while --flag1 --flag2 bar will set flag1 to true, and flag2 to bar. Finally, --flag1 --flag2 -- bar will set both configuration parameters to true, and the bar is taken as a command argument.
Any environment variables that start with npm_config_ will be interpreted as a configuration parameter. For example, putting npm_config_foo=bar in your environment will set the foo configuration parameter to bar. Any environment configurations that are not given a value will be given the value of true. Config values are case-insensitive, so NPM_CONFIG_FOO=bar will work the same. However, please note that inside scripts npm will set its own environment variables and Node will prefer those lowercase versions over any uppercase ones that you might set. For details see this issue.
Notice that you need to use underscores instead of dashes, so --allow-same-version would become npm_config_allow_same_version=true.
The four relevant files are:
/path/to/my/project/.npmrc)$HOME/.npmrc; configurable via CLI option -userconfig or environment variable $NPM_CONFIG_USERCONFIG)$PREFIX/etc/npmrc; configurable via CLI option -globalconfig or environment variable $NPM_CONFIG_GLOBALCONFIG)/path/to/npm/npmrc)See npmrc for more details.
Run npm config ls -l to see a set of configuration parameters that are internal to npm, and are defaults if nothing else is specified.
The following shorthands are parsed on the command-line:
a: -all-enjoy-by: -beforec: -call-desc: -description