npm - Install only one package from package.json?

Question

Suppose that somewhere in my package.json I have:

"dependencies": {
    "bower": "1.0.0",
    // zillion other dependencies
}

Is there a way to make npm install only bower@1.0.0 from my package.json? Like so: npm install --only bower.

My goal is to make npm install and bower install run simultaneously.

Answer 1

As a workaround you may use something like:

> node -p -e "require('./package.json').dependencies.bower"
// → 1.0.0
> npm install bower@`node -p -e "require('./package.json').dependencies.bower"`
// → npm install bower@1.0.0

Where -e/--eval flag evaluates passed string and -p/--print prints result of eval.