Package managers you'll meet

Modern software is built from thousands of small pre-written pieces. Package managers are the tools that download and organize those pieces. You'll meet two constantly:

npm install                 # install everything this JavaScript project needs
npm install react           # add a specific package called "react"
pip install requests        # install a Python package called "requests"

• npm is the package manager for JavaScript and Node projects. npm install (often shown as npm i) reads a file listing what the project needs and downloads it all.
• pip does the same job for Python.

You'll often run npm install once when you first open a project, then forget about it. When the AI adds a feature that needs a new package, it'll tell you to install it. Now you know what that means: it's just fetching a building block, not anything to fear.

That's the command line. Not a hacker's weapon — just a text box that does exactly what you ask. Learn to read the prompt, recognize a dozen commands, stop a runaway process with Ctrl-C, and read before you run. Everything else, you can ask about.