# How to easily keep a JavaScript project’s packages up to date

Here’s how to fly through your package update chores using some handy tools.

Ah, the pain of combing through your `package.json` and comparing version
numbers in npmjs.org. This is a task that is relatively easy to automate.

## The npm-check package

[npm-check](https://npmjs.org/package/npm-check) is a brilliant package which
almost completely automates the process and provides a nice interface. Start by
Installing it globally:

```shell
npm i -f npm-check
```

Then run it:

```shell
npm-check -us
```

You get a prompt showing you the outdated packages. Then press space to select a
package to be updated, and hit enter to start the update process.

![npm-check package update helper](/images/npm-check-package-update-helper.png)

npm-check shows you outdated packages

Here’s the explanations for the flags:

-u
  Interactive update.
  -s
  Skip check for unused packages.

### Running npm-check with legacy-peer-deps

You can’t pass `npm-check` any npm flags like `--legacy-peer-deps` which is a
bummer. But you can make an `.npmrc` file in your project’s root where you can
configure it `legacy-peer-deps=true`. Or you can configure npm globally
`npm config set legacy-peer-deps true`.

## Option 2: npm-check-updates

The package [npm-check-updates](https://npmjs.org/package/npm-check-updates)
does pretty much the same as `npm-check`, but with one extra step: the script
updates the package version numbers in your `package.json`, then you run
`npm update` manually.

Install globally:

```shell
$ npm i -g npm-check-updates
```

`cd` into your project and run it:

```shell
$ npm-check-updates
```

That’ll spew out a list of outdated packages for you to inspect. Then tell it to
update the `packages.json` file:

```shell
$ npm-check-updates -u
```

When it’s done, use npm’s built-in update command:

```shell
$ npm update
```

## Conclusions

Using npm-check has worked very well for me. It has helped reduce my package
update anxiety.