What is Package Manager

A package manager is a piece of software that lets you manage the external code, written by you or someone else, that your project needs to work correctly. By default, NativeScript CLI uses Node Package Manager (npm) for managing the dependencies of the application. When new application is created, CLI automatically calls npm install to install all of its dependencies.

Supported package managers

NativeScript CLI allows you to configure the package manager used when working with dependencies. When you change the defaultly used npm package manager, CLI will use the newly set package manager for all operations it executes related to project dependencies, for example, project creation, managing dependencies, etc.

NativeScript CLI supports three package managers:

• npm - this is the default option
• yarn - you can set it by calling tns package-manager set yarn. More information about yarn is available here
• pnpm - from version 6.4, you can use pnpm to manage the dependencies of your application. You can use pnpm by calling tns package-manager set pnpm. NOTE: You will have to use --shamefully-hoist flag if you call pnpm on your own. CLI passes this flag when installing dependencies with pnpm and probably your application will not work if you omit it. More information about pnpm is available here.

In case you want to check what is the currently used package manager, you can use:

$ tns package-manager get