isaacs/npm — Issue #1738: idea: install from cache only
Author: dominictarr
Created: 2011-11-20 09:10:57+00:00
State: open

add an option to temporarily disable checking the registry for updated packages, and install straight from the cache.

basically, acting as if the request that checks if there is some thing more recent returned 'no', but without making the request.

only if a needed module was in the cache, would npm make a request to the registry.

the benefits that I imagine are greater speed, since there are potentially 0 network round trips.
this could be for applications that needed to constantly install things, like a testing service,
which could update the cache with a separate process listening on the _changes feed.

also, it you could use npm offline, if you didn't need new modules.