What does 'x packages are looking for funding' mean when running `npm install`?

When you run npm update in the command prompt, when it is done it will recommend you type a new command called npm fund.

When you run npm fund it will list all the modules and packages you have installed that were created by companies or organizations that need money for their IT projects. You will see a list of webpages where you can send them money. So "funds" means "Angular packages you installed that could use some money from you as an option to help support their businesses".

It's basically a list of the modules you have that need contributions or donations of money to their projects and which list websites where you can enter a credit card to help pay for them.

npm decided to add a new command: npm fund that will provide more visibility to npm users on what dependencies are actively looking for ways to fund their work.

npm install will also show a single message at the end in order to let user aware that dependencies are looking for funding, it looks like this:

$ npm install
packages are looking for funding.
run `npm fund` for details.

Running npm fund <package> will open the url listed for that given package right in your browser.

For more details look here

First of all, try to support open source developers when you can, they invest quite a lot of their (free) time into these packages. But if you want to get rid of funding messages, you can configure NPM to turn these off. The command to do this is:

npm config set fund false --global

... or if you just want to turn it off for a particular project, run this in the project directory:

npm config set fund false 

For details why this was implemented, see @Stokely's and @ArunPratap's answers.

You can skip fund using:

npm install --no-fund YOUR PACKAGE NAME

For example:

npm install --no-fund core-js

If you need to install multiple packages:

npm install --no-fund package1 package2 package3

first, it's not an error or warning. it's basically a message to you to donate some money if you wish to the company/people or individual who built a package you have installed/used in your project, to see which package, simply type in your terminal

npm fund

and a list of the packages names and their website URLs underneath to donate. I hope this is helpful..

npm config set false --global 
npm config set fund false

npm fund [<pkg>]

This command retrieves information on how to fund the dependencies of a given project. If no package name is provided, it will list all dependencies that are looking for funding in a tree-structure in which are listed the type of funding and the url to visit. The message can be disabled using: npm install --no-fund

These are Open Source projects (or developers) which can use donations to fund to help support their business.

In npm the command npm fund will list the urls where you can fund

In composer the command composer fund will do the same.

While there are options mentioned above using which one can use to get rid of the funding message, but try to support the cause if you can.

npm install --silent

Seems to suppress the funding issue.

I would recommend against suppressing the funding message. It is informational only. At the very least they would give you some idea of one the potential risks that the 3rd party npm package is facing.