What is the difference between “npm install” and “npm ci”?

Question

I\'m working with continuous integration and discovered the npm ci command.

I can\'t figure what the advantages are of using this command for my workflow.

Answer 1

It is worth having in mind that light node docker images like alpine do not have Python installed which is a dependency of node-gyp which is used by npm ci.

I think it's a bit opinionated that in order to have npm ci working you need to install Python as dependency in your build.

More info here Docker and npm - gyp ERR! not ok