bun.sh/docs/cli/bun-install.md

bun install

bun install is a fast package manager & npm client.

bun install can be configured via bunfig.toml, environment variables, and CLI flags.

Configuring bun install with bunfig.toml

bunfig.toml is searched for in the following paths on bun install, bun remove, and bun add:

1. $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/.bunfig.toml or $HOME/.bunfig.toml
2. ./bunfig.toml

If both are found, the results are merged together.

Configuring with bunfig.toml is optional. Bun tries to be zero configuration in general, but that's not always possible.

# Using scoped packages with bun install
[install.scopes]

# Scope name      The value can be a URL string or an object
"@mybigcompany" = { token = "123456", url = "https://registry.mybigcompany.com" }
# URL is optional and fallsback to the default registry

# The "@" in the scope is optional
mybigcompany2 = { token = "123456" }

# Environment variables can be referenced as a string that starts with $ and it will be replaced
mybigcompany3 = { token = "$npm_config_token" }

# Setting username and password turns it into a Basic Auth header by taking base64("username:password")
mybigcompany4 = { username = "myusername", password = "$npm_config_password", url = "https://registry.yarnpkg.com/" }
# You can set username and password in the registry URL. This is the same as above.
mybigcompany5 = "https://username:password@registry.yarnpkg.com/"

# You can set a token for a registry URL:
mybigcompany6 = "https://:$NPM_CONFIG_TOKEN@registry.yarnpkg.com/"

[install]
# Default registry
# can be a URL string or an object
registry = "https://registry.yarnpkg.com/"
# as an object
#registry = { url = "https://registry.yarnpkg.com/", token = "123456" }

# Install for production? This is the equivalent to the "--production" CLI argument
production = false

# Don't actually install
dryRun = true

# Install optionalDependencies (default: true)
optional = true

# Install local devDependencies (default: true)
dev = true

# Install peerDependencies (default: false)
peer = false

# When using `bun install -g`, install packages here
globalDir = "~/.bun/install/global"

# When using `bun install -g`, link package bins here
globalBinDir = "~/.bun/bin"

# cache-related configuration
[install.cache]
# The directory to use for the cache
dir = "~/.bun/install/cache"

# Don't load from the global cache.
# Note: Bun may still write to node_modules/.cache
disable = false


# Always resolve the latest versions from the registry
disableManifest = false


# Lockfile-related configuration
[install.lockfile]

# Print a yarn v1 lockfile
# Note: it does not load the lockfile, it just converts bun.lockb into a yarn.lock
print = "yarn"

# Path to read bun.lockb from
path = "bun.lockb"

# Path to save bun.lockb to
savePath = "bun.lockb"

# Save the lockfile to disk
save = true

If it's easier to read as TypeScript types:

export interface Root {
  install: Install;
}

export interface Install {
  scopes: Scopes;
  registry: Registry;
  production: boolean;
  dryRun: boolean;
  optional: boolean;
  dev: boolean;
  peer: boolean;
  globalDir: string;
  globalBinDir: string;
  cache: Cache;
  lockfile: Lockfile;
  logLevel: "debug" | "error" | "warn";
}

type Registry =
  | string
  | {
      url?: string;
      token?: string;
      username?: string;
      password?: string;
    };

type Scopes = Record<string, Registry>;

export interface Cache {
  dir: string;
  disable: boolean;
  disableManifest: boolean;
}

export interface Lockfile {
  print?: "yarn";
  path: string;
  savePath: string;
  save: boolean;
}

Configuring with environment variables

Environment variables have a higher priority than bunfig.toml.

Name	Description
BUN_CONFIG_REGISTRY	Set an npm registry (default: https://registry.npmjs.org)
BUN_CONFIG_TOKEN	Set an auth token (currently does nothing)
BUN_CONFIG_LOCKFILE_SAVE_PATH	File path to save the lockfile to (default: bun.lockb)
BUN_CONFIG_YARN_LOCKFILE	Save a Yarn v1-style yarn.lock
BUN_CONFIG_LINK_NATIVE_BINS	Point bin in package.json to a platform-specific dependency
BUN_CONFIG_SKIP_SAVE_LOCKFILE	Don’t save a lockfile
BUN_CONFIG_SKIP_LOAD_LOCKFILE	Don’t load a lockfile
BUN_CONFIG_SKIP_INSTALL_PACKAGES	Don’t install any packages

Bun always tries to use the fastest available installation method for the target platform. On macOS, that’s clonefile and on Linux, that’s hardlink. You can change which installation method is used with the --backend flag. When unavailable or on error, clonefile and hardlink fallsback to a platform-specific implementation of copying files.

Bun stores installed packages from npm in ~/.bun/install/cache/${name}@${version}. Note that if the semver version has a build or a pre tag, it is replaced with a hash of that value instead. This is to reduce the chances of errors from long file paths, but unfortunately complicates figuring out where a package was installed on disk.

When the node_modules folder exists, before installing, Bun checks if the "name" and "version" in package/package.json in the expected node_modules folder matches the expected name and version. This is how it determines whether it should install. It uses a custom JSON parser which stops parsing as soon as it finds "name" and "version".

When a bun.lockb doesn’t exist or package.json has changed dependencies, tarballs are downloaded & extracted eagerly while resolving.

When a bun.lockb exists and package.json hasn’t changed, Bun downloads missing dependencies lazily. If the package with a matching name & version already exists in the expected location within node_modules, Bun won’t attempt to download the tarball.

Platform-specific dependencies?

bun stores normalized cpu and os values from npm in the lockfile, along with the resolved packages. It skips downloading, extracting, and installing packages disabled for the current target at runtime. This means the lockfile won’t change between platforms/architectures even if the packages ultimately installed do change.

Peer dependencies?

Peer dependencies are handled similarly to yarn. bun install does not automatically install peer dependencies and will try to choose an existing dependency.

Lockfile

bun.lockb is Bun’s binary lockfile format.

Why is it binary?

In a word: Performance. Bun’s lockfile saves & loads incredibly quickly, and saves a lot more data than what is typically inside lockfiles.

How do I inspect it?

For now, the easiest thing is to run bun install -y. That prints a Yarn v1-style yarn.lock file.

What does the lockfile store?

Packages, metadata for those packages, the hoisted install order, dependencies for each package, what packages those dependencies resolved to, an integrity hash (if available), what each package was resolved to and which version (or equivalent).

Why is it fast?

It uses linear arrays for all data. Packages are referenced by an auto-incrementing integer ID or a hash of the package name. Strings longer than 8 characters are de-duplicated. Prior to saving on disk, the lockfile is garbage-collected & made deterministic by walking the package tree and cloning the packages in dependency order.

Cache

To delete the cache:

$ rm -rf ~/.bun/install/cache

Platform-specific backends

bun install uses different system calls to install dependencies depending on the platform. This is a performance optimization. You can force a specific backend with the --backend flag.

hardlink is the default backend on Linux. Benchmarking showed it to be the fastest on Linux.

$ rm -rf node_modules
$ bun install --backend hardlink

clonefile is the default backend on macOS. Benchmarking showed it to be the fastest on macOS. It is only available on macOS.

$ rm -rf node_modules
$ bun install --backend clonefile

clonefile_each_dir is similar to clonefile, except it clones each file individually per directory. It is only available on macOS and tends to perform slower than clonefile. Unlike clonefile, this does not recursively clone subdirectories in one system call.

$ rm -rf node_modules
$ bun install --backend clonefile_each_dir

copyfile is the fallback used when any of the above fail, and is the slowest. on macOS, it uses fcopyfile() and on linux it uses copy_file_range().

$ rm -rf node_modules
$ bun install --backend copyfile

symlink is typically only used for file: dependencies (and eventually link:) internally. To prevent infinite loops, it skips symlinking the node_modules folder.

If you install with --backend=symlink, Node.js won't resolve node_modules of dependencies unless each dependency has its own node_modules folder or you pass --preserve-symlinks to node. See Node.js documentation on --preserve-symlinks.

$ rm -rf node_modules
$ bun install --backend symlink
$ node --preserve-symlinks ./my-file.js # https://nodejs.org/api/cli.html#--preserve-symlinks

Bun's runtime does not currently expose an equivalent of --preserve-symlinks, though the code for it does exist.

npm registry metadata

bun uses a binary format for caching NPM registry responses. This loads much faster than JSON and tends to be smaller on disk. You will see these files in ~/.bun/install/cache/*.npm. The filename pattern is ${hash(packageName)}.npm. It’s a hash so that extra directories don’t need to be created for scoped packages.

Bun's usage of Cache-Control ignores Age. This improves performance, but means bun may be about 5 minutes out of date to receive the latest package version metadata from npm.