Why do Node modules go into .staging folder?

I was also facing the same issue, I tried the steps below:

1. Delete package-lock.json
2. Delete Node Modules folder

3. Try installing it using below command (should be in open network)

   npm install

Note: - ".staging" means, those dependencies are getting downloaded so for the temporary basis it keeps all those dependencies under ".staging" folder. Once all gets downloaded properly then it will showcase them under node_modules only.

I hope this will work.

This only happens temporarily until the modules are downloaded and installed. Node seems to do this so it can place together common submodules from all the modules you are installing so it can better structure the node modules folder(mainly for windows users).

If this is happening after an npm install finishes it is likely that there is something wrong with your node installation or something in the install failed.

If you're automatically installing node_modules using CI/CD you should check out npm ci. Also check out this Stackoverflow question.

npm ci

The documentation points out the differences between npm install and npm ci.

• The project must have an existing package-lock.json or npm-shrinkwrap.json
• If dependencies in the package lock do not match those in package.json, npm ci will exit with an error, instead of updating the package lock.
• npm ci can only install entire projects at a time: individual dependencies cannot be added with this command.
• If a node_modules is already present, it will be automatically removed before npm ci begins its install. This is nice, because it prevents having to do something like rm -rf node_modules.
• It will never write to package.json or any of the package-locks: installs are essentially frozen.