NPM problem: npm ERR! extraneous

The Problem: npm ERR! extraneous

Checking out an npm problem, I tried

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$ npm list

and got the following error at the end of my listing:

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npm ERR! extraneous: fsevents@0.1.6 /Users/flichten/repos/cg/feature-library/feature-skeleton/node_modules/karma/node_modules/chokidar/node_modules/fsevents npm ERR! extraneous: recursive-readdir@0.0.2 /Users/flichten/repos/cg/feature-library/feature-skeleton/node_modules/karma/node_modules/chokidar/node_modules/recursive-readdir npm ERR! not ok code 0

The Explanation: Unneeded (“extraneous”) packages are installed

It seems the problem is really just a warning. NPM is saying that there are some unused, unnecessary packages installed. In most cases, this is probably an “error” that should be a warning and can therefore be ignored.

The Solution: npm prune

It’s probably safe to ignore this error. But you can clean up the unnecessary packages with

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$ npm prune

Problem solved.