NPM-START(1)

✨ npm-start ✨

okay bestie, welcome to the npm-start(1) glow-up 💅 this little icon is all about starting a package and honestly it's giving main character energy.

🌸 Synopsis

npm start [-- <args>]

💖 Description

So here's the vibe: this runs a predefined command that lives in the "start" property of your package's "scripts" object. that's it, that's the whole job 🎀

but bestie, listen — if your "scripts" object doesn't define a "start" property, npm will just run node server.js for you. no cap, it's got a fallback 💫

🫶 lowkey important: this is different from the default node behavior of running the file specified in a package's "main" attribute when you evoke with node . — so don't get it twisted!

and as of npm@2.0.0 (the blog post lives at https://blog.npmjs.org/post/98131109725/npm-2-0-0 if you wanna read the lore 📖), you can use custom arguments when executing scripts. refer to npm help run for more details, iykyk ✨

🦋 Example

{
  "scripts": {
    "start": "node foo.js"
  }
}

npm start

> npm@x.x.x start
> node foo.js

(foo.js output would be here)

slay, look at it go 🔥

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⭐ Configuration

🙈 ignore-scripts

• Default: false
• Type: Boolean

if true, npm does not run scripts specified in package.json files. periodt.

💀 but here's the tea: commands explicitly intended to run a particular script — like npm start, npm stop, npm restart, npm test, and npm run — will still run their intended script if ignore-scripts is set. they just won't run any pre- or post-scripts alongside it. so the main event happens, the openers and closers stay home 🙈

also, setting ignore-scripts disables .npm-extension execution too, as if ignore-extension were set. double whammy 🫶

🧚 script-shell

• Default: '/bin/sh' on POSIX systems, 'cmd.exe' on Windows
• Type: null or String

the shell to use for scripts run with the npm exec, npm run and npm init <package-spec> commands. pick your fighter 🎀

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👑 See Also

• npm help run
• npm help scripts
• npm help test
• npm help restart
• npm help stop

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and that's the whole page, bestie — go forth and npm start your little heart out 🌈💜

this has been NPM-START(1) from npm NPM@12.2.1, dated October 2026 — signed off with love, sparkles, and zero missing flags 🎀✨