How to load and use modules

Before we begin, take a look at these three commands:

$ node --version
v8.1.2

$ npm --version
5.5.1

$ npm install npm@latest -g

To install Node, you likely navigated your favorite web browser to https://nodejs.org/en/, downloaded the appropriate installer app for your operating system, and clicked through some OK buttons. When you did this, you also got npm. However, npm updates quite frequently, so even if you've updated Node recently, you may not have the latest version of npm.

Additionally, downloading and installing a new Node installer will update Node, but doesn't always update npm, so use npm install npm@latest -g to ensure that you've got the most recent version.

The Node designers believe that most modules should be developed in userland—by developers, for developers. As such, an effort is made to limit the growth of the standard library. At the time of writing this, Node’s standard module library contains the following short list of modules:

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