What is the difference between running npx eslint and npx?

Question

I am using npm 8.5.0 and node v16.14.2 on a big project. When I run eslint, I can choose to run it without npx, or I can run it with npx. There doesn't seem to be any difference. I'm writing some npm scripts that run eslint and I don't know whether to write npx eslint or eslint. What is the difference between running npx eslint and eslint?

Answer 1

npx will download and run the package and is meant for interactive use where you just want to use a tool from the npm registry.

You shouldn't use it in your package.json's scripts section; instead just make sure the desired version of eslint is in your package's dev dependencies and use "eslint" in the scripts, so you're certain to use the correct version.