How to Install Yarn on Ubuntu 20.04

Yarn is a JavaScript package manager compatible with npm that helps you automate the process of installing, updating, configuring, and removing npm packages. It caches every download package and speeds up the installation process by parallelizing operations.

In this tutorial, we will explain how to install Yarn on Ubuntu 20.04. We will also go through the basic Yarn commands and options. If you want to use npm instead, see the npm command guide .

Installing Yarn on Ubuntu #

Installing Yarn on Ubuntu is fairly straightforward. We’ll enable the official Yarn repository, import the repository GPG key, and install the package. The repository is consistently maintained and provides the most up-to-date version.

Import the repository’s GPG key and add the Yarn APT repository to your system by running the following commands:

curl -sS https://dl.yarnpkg.com/debian/pubkey.gpg | sudo apt-key add -
echo "deb https://dl.yarnpkg.com/debian/ stable main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/yarn.list

Once the repository is enabled, update the package list, and install Yarn.

sudo apt update
sudo apt install yarn

The command above will also install Node.js . If you installed Node trough nvm, skip the Node.js installation with:

sudo apt install --no-install-recommends yarn

Once completed, verify the installation by printing the Yarn version:

yarn --version

The output will look something like this:

1.22.4

The version installed on your system may differ from the one shown above.

That’s it! You have successfully installed Yarn on your Ubuntu machine, and you can start using it.

Using Yarn #

Now that Yarn has been installed on your Ubuntu system, let’s explore some of the most common Yarn commands.

Creating a new project #

Start by creating a directory for your application and navigate into it:

mkdir ~/my_project && cd ~/my_project

To create a new project, run yarn init:

yarn init my_project

The command will ask you several questions. Enter information as prompted, or accept the defaults:

yarn init v1.22.4
question name (vagrant): Linuxize
question version (1.0.0): 0.0.1
question description: Testing Yarn
question entry point (index.js): 
question repository url: 
question author: Linuxize
question license (MIT): 
question private: 
success Saved package.json
Done in 20.18s.

Once completed, the script creates a basic package.json file containing the provided information. You can open and edit this file at any time.

Adding dependency #

To add an npm package to the project dependencies, use the yarn add command followed by the package name:

yarn add [package_name]

The command above will update the package.json and yarn.lock files.

By default, when only the package name is given, Yarn installs the latest version. To install a specific version or tag, use the following syntax:

yarn add [package_name]@[version_or_tag]

Upgrading dependency #

To upgrade the packages, use one of the following commands:

yarn upgrade
yarn upgrade [package_name]
yarn upgrade [package_name]@[version_or_tag]

If no package name is given, the command will update the project dependencies to their latest version according to the version range specified in the package.json file. Otherwise, only the specified packages are updated.

Removing dependency #

Use the yarn remove command followed by the package name to remove a dependency:

yarn remove [package_name]

The command will remove the package and update the project’s package.json and yarn.lock files.

Installing all project dependencies #

To install all project dependencies that are specified in the package.json file, run:

yarn

or

yarn install

Conclusion #

We have shown you how to install Yarn on your Ubuntu machine. For more information about Yarn visit their documentation page.

If you have any questions or feedback, feel free to comment below.

About the authors

Dejan Panovski

Dejan Panovski is the founder of Linuxize, an RHCSA-certified Linux system administrator and DevOps engineer based in Skopje, Macedonia. Author of 800+ Linux tutorials with 20+ years of experience turning complex Linux tasks into clear, reliable guides.

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