Support Policy

Long Term Support (LTS)

The npm CLI project does not have designated LTS releases. The project only makes regular releases to the most recent major release-line. If you want to learn more, please read our LICENSE.

Historical Notes:

• During the npm@3 release cycle, npm@2 was maintained as an "LTS release". Support for this version ended when npm@4 was released & no new version was promoted to LTS status; The lts dist-tag, & any references in our documentation, are remnants that will be removed by: February 28th, 2021
• There have historically been out-of-band releases to older versions of the CLI at the request of the Node.js project, & at this team's discretion (ex. important updates to node-gyp)

Security Issues

In the event of a security issue, the npm CLI project will backport - when possible - security patches to any version of npm currently shipping with a supported Node.js version; That is to say, any Node.js version still in its own "maintenance window".

Using Old Versions

Older versions of the npm CLI should continue to work with the npm Public Registry (ie. registry.npmjs.org) but may not support all of its latest features & reliability may degrade over time.

Questions & Comments

Questions, comments, or requests to change this policy should be opened in npm's feedback repository.