[BUG] npm search with scope parameter does not return accurate results

[abhijeetsharma7]

Is there an existing issue for this?

• I have searched the existing issues

This issue exists in the latest npm version

• I am using the latest npm

Current Behavior

I am trying to get all the packages which starts with a specific scope, where scope is @.
The command i am using to get the same is -
npm search scope:@ --searchlimit=100 --json
However this yields not so good results. Many packages are return which are not related to the scope.

Also, is there a config for searchlimit like searchlimit=-1 which may return all the results instead of specifying a pre defined limit ?

Expected Behavior

Should return results of packages which contains the scope as mentioned in command.

Steps To Reproduce

No response

Environment

• npm: 10.9.2
• Node.js: 22.14.0
• OS Name: mac
• System Model Name: M3
• npm config:

; copy and paste output from `npm config ls` here

[milaninfy]

@abhijeetsharma7 Thank you for the report. This is currently working as expected.

Checkout the documentation https://docs.npmjs.com/cli/v11/commands/npm-search#description and https://docs.npmjs.com/cli/v11/commands/npm-search#searchopts .

Search the registry for packages matching the search terms. npm search performs a linear, incremental, lexically-ordered search through package metadata for all files in the registry. If your terminal has color support, it will further highlight the matches in the results

[abhijeetsharma7]

@milaninfy thank you for your response.
I had a few doubts -

1. Does searchopts always search for a scope or same needs to be mentioned. e.g. - npm search searchopts=scope:@someScope
2. About searchlimit, i understand this the flag to specify a limit, but if i want all results is there any support for same like seachlimit=-1 ?