Cheat Sheet: ni - universal CLI alias for npm/yarn/pnpm/bun

Tool ni is a utility that removes the need to recognize a type of package manager in JS projects (npm, yarn, pnpm, bun). It provides a unified interface and uses appropriate commands instead (calls yarn in yarn projects, npm in npm projects, etc.).

Let's assume getting a project with an unknown manager (at least for the first 5 seconds) or just a situation when we work with multiple projects having different managers. It may become a little bit annoying to pay attention to which manager we need.

The ni is a CLI utility that recognizes a project package manager according to its lock file (yarn.lock, package-lock.json, etc.) and uses appropriate commands. At least basic ones that could be unified.

Installation

npm i -g @antfu/ni

Also, it is better to create a config ~/.nirc with default values.

defaultAgent=npm
globalAgent=npm

Usage

Examples below are based on the yarn commands.

ni      # yarn install
ni X    # yarn add X
ni -D X # yarn add -D X
nr dev  # yarn run dev
na      # yarn

A full list is defined at README.md of the library.

It is nothing too special, but it removes a tiny annoying part during app development.