Using custom registry on NPM 11.3.0+

[Houbein]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.
Our company security policy does not allow us to download things from the public NPM registry, we have to use an internal mirror.
We are currently doing this by adding these lines below to an .npmrc file present in C:/Users/USERNAME
registry==https://INTERNAL_MIRROR
grpc_node_binary_host_mirror=https://INTERNAL_MIRROR
NODE_CHROMIUM_DOWNLOAD_HOST=https://INTERNAL_MIRROR
PLAYWRIGHT_DOWNLOAD_HOST=https://INTERNAL_MIRROR
nscc=https://INTERNAL_MIRROR

But from NPM version 11.2.0 this gives a depracated warning:
npm warn Unknown user config "grpc_node_binary_host_mirror". This will stop working in the next major version of npm.
npm warn Unknown user config "NODE_CHROMIUM_DOWNLOAD_HOST". This will stop working in the next major version of npm.
npm warn Unknown user config "PLAYWRIGHT_DOWNLOAD_HOST". This will stop working in the next major version of npm.
npm warn Unknown user config "nscc". This will stop working in the next major version of npm.

I tried to solve this by wrapping it in a .bat file:
SET grpc_node_binary_host_mirror=https://INTERNAL_MIRRORSET
SET NODE_CHROMIUM_DOWNLOAD_HOST=https://INTERNAL_MIRROR
SET PLAYWRIGHT_DOWNLOAD_HOST=https://INTERNAL_MIRROR
SET nscc=https://INTERNAL_MIRROR
rfbrowser clean-node
rfbrowser init

Which works in NPM 11.2.0 to remove the depracated warnings, but still fails in NPM 11.3.0.

Describe the solution you'd like
It seems NPM wants to get rid of global .npmrc settings files and wants everyone to put their settings into their package.json file. See also: giggio/node-chromedriver#535
This works for individual npm projects, but not for the Browser Library.
Because this means I would have to write a script to insert our company proxy settings into the Browser Library package.json, a script that would have to be run after every update of the Browser Library. Which is not exactly ideal.

Describe alternatives you've considered
I would like a way to tell rfbrowser_init to use our internal mirror without having to alter the package.json after every update, or things will get messy and complicated for every company that relies on a mirror.

[aaltat]

Recommendation is not to use .npmrc for Playwright environment variables (like PLAYWRIGHT_DOWNLOAD_HOST), instead you should declare those as normal environments variables. This requirement is not our invention, but Playwrights: https://playwright.dev/docs/browsers#download-from-artifact-repository Npm is not getting rid of global config, it is getting rid of abusing .npmrc as config for other stuff, which you and many others are doing. Also .npmrc allows you to define custom registry for installing node modules (that is not affected.) Defining the environment variable and using .npmrc` to define custom repository works, I use it at work regularly.

That being said, your idea is also valid one. Allowing users to define custom https://docs.npmjs.com/cli/v11/configuring-npm/package-json#config could be handy in many cases. Are you interested to provide a PR to implement it?

[aaltat]

@allcontributors please add @Houbein for ideas

[allcontributors]

@aaltat

@Houbein already contributed before to ideas

[Houbein]

I am interested, but my experience with these things is basic so it would not be a quick job.
I am also not able to get our custom registry working under npm 11.3.0. Not by using system variables and not be putting it into the package.json as a config like npm reccomends. Even though these work under 11.2.0, they fail under 11.3.0.
So I have some troubleshooting to do before I can start work on a general sollution.