How do I override nested NPM dependency versions?

Question

I would like to use the grunt-contrib-jasmine NPM package. It has various dependencies. Part of the dependency graph looks like this:

─┬ [email protected]
 │ ├─┬ [email protected]
 │ │ ├─┬ [email protected]

Unfortunately, there's a bug in this version phantomjs which prevents it from installing correctly on Mac OS X. This is fixed in the latest version.

How can I get grunt-lib-phantomjs to use a newer version of phantomjs?

Some additional context:

• grunt-contrib-jasmine explicitly requires version "~0.2.0" of grunt-lib-phantomjs, which explicitly requires version "~1.8.1" of phantomjs.
• Adding phantomjs to my package's dependencies first has no effect; both versions are installed and grunt-contrib-jasmine still uses the older versions (see: When installing a package with NPM, can you tell it to use a different version of one of its dependencies?).

Answer 1

As of npm cli v8.3.0 (2021-12-09) this can be solved using the overrides field of package.json. As described in StriplingWarrior's answer

For example, the project has typescript version 4.6.2 as direct development dependency and awesome-typescript-loader that uses old version 2.7 of typescript. Here is how you can tell npm to use version 4.6.2 of typescript for awesome-typescript-loader:

{
  "name": "myproject",
  "version": "0.0.0",
  "scripts": ...
  "dependencies": ...
  "devDependencies": {
    "typescript": "~4.6.2",
    "awesome-typescript-loader": "^5.2.1",
    ...
  },
  "overrides": {
    "awesome-typescript-loader": {
      "typescript": "$typescript"
    }
  }
}

If you don't use typescript as direct development dependency, then you have to write 4.6.2 instead of $typescript in overrides section:

{
  "name": "myproject",
  "version": "0.0.0",
  "scripts": ...
  "dependencies": ...
  "devDependencies": {
    "awesome-typescript-loader": "^5.2.1",
    ...
  },
  "overrides": {
    "awesome-typescript-loader": {
      "typescript": "~4.6.2"
    }
  }
}

For using the latest version of dependency:

{
  "name": "myproject",
  "version": "0.0.0",
  "scripts": ...
  "dependencies": ...
  "devDependencies": {
    "awesome-typescript-loader": "^5.2.1",
    ...
  },
  "overrides": {
    "awesome-typescript-loader": {
      "typescript": "latest"
    }
  }
}

Same overrides can be used for both dependencies and devDependencies.

---

If you're using npm version >5 but <8.3.0: edit your package-lock.json: remove the library from "requires" section and add it under "dependencies".

For example, you want deglob package to use glob package version 3.2.11 instead of its current one. You open package-lock.json and see:

"deglob": {
  "version": "2.1.0",
  "resolved": "https://registry.npmjs.org/deglob/-/deglob-2.1.0.tgz",
  "integrity": "sha1-TUSr4W7zLHebSXK9FBqAMlApoUo=",
  "requires": {
    "find-root": "1.1.0",
    "glob": "7.1.2",
    "ignore": "3.3.5",
    "pkg-config": "1.1.1",
    "run-parallel": "1.1.6",
    "uniq": "1.0.1"
  }
},

Remove "glob": "7.1.2", from "requires", add "dependencies" with proper version:

"deglob": {
  "version": "2.1.0",
  "resolved": "https://registry.npmjs.org/deglob/-/deglob-2.1.0.tgz",
  "integrity": "sha1-TUSr4W7zLHebSXK9FBqAMlApoUo=",
  "requires": {
    "find-root": "1.1.0",
    "ignore": "3.3.5",
    "pkg-config": "1.1.1",
    "run-parallel": "1.1.6",
    "uniq": "1.0.1"
  },
  "dependencies": {
    "glob": {
      "version": "3.2.11"
    }
  }
},

Now remove your node_modules folder, run npm ci (or npm install for old version of node/npm) and it will add missing parts to the "dependencies" section.

---

Answer 2

As of npm v8.3 (released with Node.js 16), the correct way to deal with this is via the overrides section of your package.json file.

If you need to make specific changes to dependencies of your dependencies, for example replacing the version of a dependency with a known security issue, replacing an existing dependency with a fork, or making sure that the same version of a package is used everywhere, then you may add an override.

Overrides provide a way to replace a package in your dependency tree with another version, or another package entirely. These changes can be scoped as specific or as vague as desired.

To make sure the package foo is always installed as version 1.0.0 no matter what version your dependencies rely on:

{
  "overrides": {
    "foo": "1.0.0"
  }
}

There are a variety of other, more nuanced configurations allowing you to only override a package when it's a dependency of a particular package hierarchy. For more details, check out https://docs.npmjs.com/cli/v9/configuring-npm/package-json#overrides

Answer 3

You can use npm shrinkwrap functionality, in order to override any dependency or sub-dependency.

I've just done this in a grunt project of ours. We needed a newer version of connect, since 2.7.3. was causing trouble for us. So I created a file named npm-shrinkwrap.json:

{
  "dependencies": {
    "grunt-contrib-connect": {
      "version": "0.3.0",
      "from": "[email protected]",
      "dependencies": {
        "connect": {
          "version": "2.8.1",
          "from": "connect@~2.7.3"
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

npm should automatically pick it up while doing the install for the project.

(See: https://nodejs.org/en/blog/npm/managing-node-js-dependencies-with-shrinkwrap/)

Answer 4

The only solution that worked for me (node 12.x, npm 6.x) was using npm-force-resolutions developed by @Rogerio Chaves.

First, install it by:

npm install npm-force-resolutions --save-dev

You can add --ignore-scripts if some broken transitive dependency scripts are blocking you from installing anything.

Then in package.json define what dependency should be overridden (you must set exact version number):

"resolutions": {
  "your-dependency-name": "1.23.4"
}

and in "scripts" section add new preinstall entry:

"preinstall": "npm-force-resolutions",

Now, npm install will apply changes and force your-dependency-name to be at version 1.23.4 for all dependencies.

Answer 5

For those using yarn.

I tried using npm shrinkwrap until I discovered the yarn cli ignored my npm-shrinkwrap.json file.

Yarn has https://yarnpkg.com/lang/en/docs/selective-version-resolutions/ for this. Neat.

Check out this answer too: https://stackoverflow.com/a/41082766/3051080

Answer 6

Based on the rest of the answers, I provide the same solution, but I display the package.json, as I struggled a little bit on where to place the override and how.

{
  "name": "my-app",
  "version": "snapshot",
  "scripts": {
    "ng": "ng",
    "build-dev": "ng build --configuration development",
  },
  "private": true,
  "dependencies": {
    "@angular/animations": "~14.2.9",
    "@angular/common": "~14.2.9"
  ...
  },
  "devDependencies": {
    "@angular-devkit/build-angular": "^14.2.8",
  ....
  },
  "overrides": {
    "loader-utils@>2.0.0 <3": "2.0.4",
    "loader-utils@>3.0.0 <4": "3.2.1"
  }
}

For November 2022 "loader-utils" security vulnerability, it was requested to

• use the version 2.0.4, if you are in the 2.X
• use the version 3.2.1, if you are in the 3.X

And to verify

• add the package.json the override tag
• delete the package-lock.json
• run "npm install"
• run "npm audit"

Answer 7

Nested replacement with an entirely different package

Most of the strategies outlined in the other answers here work well if you are just interested in overriding the package's version number, but in our case, we needed to find a way to override a nested npm sub-dependency with a different package altogether. For details on why you would ever want to do this, please refer to the following question:

How to override a nested npm sub-dependency with a different package altogether (not just different package version number)?

Specify the tarball directly

For nested replacement of a package with an entirely different package using the npm-force-resolutions strategy that others have mentioned, you just need to provide a link to the tarball where you would normally specify the overriding version number.

As an example, for the case of replacing the vulnerable package, ansi-html, with the fixed fork of this package, ansi-html-community, your resolutions section of package.json should look like this:

"resolutions": {
    "ansi-html": "https://registry.npmjs.org/ansi-html-community/-/ansi-html-community-0.0.8.tgz"
}

To find the link to the tarball, use the following command, modifying your registry as necessary:

npm view ansi-html-community dist.tarball --registry=https://registry.npmjs.org/

Also, note that for npm-force-resolutions to work when you run npm install, you will need a preinstall entry under the scripts section of package.json:

  "scripts": {
    "preinstall": "npx npm-force-resolutions"
  }

Answer 8

@user11153 's answer worked for me locally, but when trying to do a clean install (aka deleting node_modules), I would get:

npm-force-resolutions: command not found

I had to update the preinstall script to be:

"preinstall": "npm i npm-force-resolutions && npm-force-resolutions"

Which ensures that npm-force-resolutions package is installed before attempting to run it.

That being said, if you're able to use yarn instead, I would do that and then use @Gus 's answer.

Answer 9

I had an issue where one of the nested dependency had an npm audit vulnerability, but I still wanted to maintain the parent dependency version. the npm shrinkwrap solution didn't work for me, so what I did to override the nested dependency version:

1. Remove the nested dependency under the 'requires' section in package-lock.json
2. Add the updated dependency under DevDependencies in package.json, so that modules that require it will still be able to access it.
3. npm i

Answer 10

I was about to go down the npm-force-resolutions route but it seems that simply including the dependency in my own package.json fixed the problem for me.

I believe this worked in my case because the original dependency allows for patch versions of the dependency in question that I wanted to update. Thus by manually including a newer version it still fulfilled the dependency of the original dependency and will use the one I've manually added.

Example

Problem

I need to update plyr to version 3.6.9 from 3.6.8

Mine

package.json

{
  "dependencies": {
    "react-plyr": "^3.2.0"
  }
}

React Plyr

package.json

{
  "dependencies": {
    "plyr": "^3.6.8"
  }
}

Notice for the plyr dependency it starts with ^ this means it can accept any minor patches. You can learn more about that here:

https://docs.npmjs.com/about-semantic-versioning#using-semantic-versioning-to-specify-update-types-your-package-can-accept

Updating Mine

This updates the plyr dependency from my package.json.

package.json

{
  "dependencies": {
    "plyr": "^3.6.9",
    "react-plyr": "^3.2.0"
  }
}

Answer 11

I could not get the override technique to work for me, at least not to prevent the error. ¹

I also couldn't use --force or --legacy-peer-deps as in npm install --force. I can run npm install --force locally but I don't know how to run that command on the server (I happen to use Google AppEngine, deployed using gcloud.cmd app deploy)

I was able to fix my issue with two steps:

1. manually modify my package-lock.json to remove the offending peer dependency:
   • the problem was the "Could not resolve dependency... Fix the upstream dependency conflict" error
   • modifying package-lock.json directly to fix dependency conflicts is also described here (I admit this solution is hacky)
2. call npm ci (instead of npm install, read about the difference here)
   • this is important because "npm ci will never write to package.json or any of the package-locks: installs are essentially frozen."
   • in other words, important for reproducibility, which depends on package-lock.json function as "a single representation of a dependency tree such that teammates, deployments, and continuous integration are guaranteed to install exactly the same dependencies"

---

For the record here is my entire error message, similar to the one seen here and here

npm ERR! code ERESOLVE
npm ERR! ERESOLVE unable to resolve dependency tree
npm ERR!
npm ERR! While resolving: [email protected]
npm ERR! Found: [email protected]
npm ERR! node_modules/cypress
npm ERR!   dev cypress@"^9.1.0" from the root project
npm ERR!
npm ERR! Could not resolve dependency:
npm ERR! peer cypress@"^4.5.0" from [email protected]
npm ERR! node_modules/cypress-plugin-snapshots
npm ERR!   dev cypress-plugin-snapshots@"^1.4.4" from the root project
npm ERR!
npm ERR! Fix the upstream dependency conflict, or retry
npm ERR! this command with --force, or --legacy-peer-deps
npm ERR! to accept an incorrect (and potentially broken) dependency resolution.
npm ERR!
npm ERR! See C:\Users\there\AppData\Local\npm-cache\eresolve-report.txt for a full report.

npm ERR! A complete log of this run can be found in:
npm ERR!     C:\Users\there\AppData\Local\npm-cache\_logs\2024-01-05T07_42_59_544Z-debug.log

¹ Maybe my overrides does not work because of the bug mentioned here and here. Those bugs say overrides only work on a "fresh" install, when there is no node_modules and no package-lock.json. I will double-check this...

Answer 12

Run this first

npm i -D @types/[email protected]

it will solve the issue