Really concise guide to package.json scripts

Being unable to find a really concise description at a stable endpoint, the "scripts"-section of package.json, central to node/npm/yarn/euh. JavaScript-development these days, here it is.

The package.json is a json file which typically contains things like version and name of a project, the typical metadata. It also contains the dependencies of a project. But this is about the scripts-section. Completely optional, but so convenient that typically your project has one already:

{
  "name": "hello world",
  "version": "0.0.1",
  "main": "index.js",
  "scripts": {
  }
}

The "scripts"-section contains snippets of code that you typically run using npm or yarn:

So let’s say you’re typing git add . && git commit -m "wip" && git push a lot (totally not recommended), you could do:

{
  "name": "hello world",
  "version": "0.0.1",
  "main": "index.js",
  "scripts": {
    "wipitup": "git add . && git commit -m \"wip\" && git push"
  }
}

and run it:

npm run wipitup

or

yarn run wipitup

Or, let’s stick with the actual goal of this project, the good ol’ hello world:

{
  "name": "hello world",
  "version": "0.0.1",
  "main": "index.js",
  "scripts": {
    "hello": "echo \"Hello World!\""
  }
}

… and do either npm run hello or yarn run hello. That’s it, hard to call it concise otherwise :)