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I have recently inherited a project. This project uses a bunch of technologies I've never used before. Specifically...

-Node -Bower -Grunt -Compass

I've been attempting to learn all these technologies simultaneously as I go so that I can get to work on the actual project.

The original developer provided a README file that explains the build process of the application. One of the commands works, but I'm unable to see what's going on near the end of it.

The command is...

npm install grunt-contrib-compass --save-dev

I believe I understand the first part (npm install grunt-contrib-compass) According to my current understanding, we're using NPM to install a dependency that can then be used by the Grunt task runner. We're installing Compass which enables SASS.

What I can't figure out here after some searching is what we're doing with --save-dev. Is this an argument for NPM? And argument for a configuration of the new dependency?

Allenph
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    I recommend learning how to use the `man` / `--help` utilities with each package, or just [reading the plain old documentation](https://docs.npmjs.com/cli/install). – Marty Feb 21 '16 at 21:53
  • This is absolutely a duplicate. I apologize for not finding that original question. Unacceptable. – Allenph Feb 21 '16 at 21:54

1 Answers1

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This will add the package to the devDependencies section of your package.json file. That way these packages will be installed when someone runs npm install and they will be able to run the project.

If the author already did this, you should be able to just run npm install

This is well documented on the npm help page.

bolav
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