Update Installed npm Packages

Just like any other software component, external packages are often updated with new features, performance improvements, bug fixes, or security patches.

Keeping these packages as up-to-date as possible generally ensures that your project remains healthy, functional, and secure over time.

Semantic versioning

Semantic versioning (SemVer) is a software versioning system used to assign meaningful version numbers to packages, indicating the nature of changes:

MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH

Where:

• MAJOR: Introduces a breaking change, making the new version incompatible with the previous version (e.g., 1.0.0 -> 2.0.0).
• MINOR: Introduces a new feature with backward compatibility (e.g., 1.0.0 -> 1.1.0).
• PATCH: Introduces a bug fix without affecting existing functionality or adding new features (e.g., 1.0.0 -> 1.0.1).

Define version ranges

In npm, semantic versioning allows developers to lock down packages to specific versions or version ranges, which helps avoid unintentionally installing updates that might introduce breaking changes.

To define which versions of a package are acceptable to install, you can use the following expressions:

• version: Requires the exact version specified.
• >version: Accepts any version that is greater than the specified version.
• >=version: Accepts the specified version or any greater version.