nr

Run npm scripts. 26x faster.

A zero-overhead npm script runner written in Rust. No Node.js startup, no npm overhead—just your script.

Benchmarks

Runner	Time	Speedup	Size
nr	10ms	25.6x	377KB
bun	11ms	23.3x	55MB
npm	125ms	2.0x	18MB
yarn	133ms	1.9x	5MB
pnpm	256ms	1.0x	19MB

Measured running echo test on macOS 26.2 (Apple Silicon). Your mileage may vary.

Install

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/dawsbot/nr/main/install.sh | sh

Works on macOS, Linux, and Windows (via Git Bash/WSL).

Usage

# List available scripts
nr

# Run a script
nr build

# Pass arguments to the script
nr test -- --watch

AI Assistant Setup

Make your AI coding assistant use nr instead of npm run by adding this instruction to its config:

Use `nr` instead of `npm run` for running package.json scripts. It's a faster drop-in replacement.

Claude Code

Add to ~/.claude/CLAUDE.md (global) or CLAUDE.md in your project root:

Use `nr` instead of `npm run` for running package.json scripts.

Cursor

Add to .cursorrules in your project root:

Use `nr` instead of `npm run` for running package.json scripts.

GitHub Copilot

Add to .github/copilot-instructions.md in your repo:

Use `nr` instead of `npm run` for running package.json scripts.

Windsurf

Add to .windsurfrules in your project root:

Use `nr` instead of `npm run` for running package.json scripts.

Zed

Add to .zed/settings.json in your project:

{
  "assistant": {
    "instructions": "Use `nr` instead of `npm run` for running package.json scripts."
  }
}

Why is it faster?

No Node.js startup. npm, yarn, and pnpm all bootstrap Node.js before doing anything. That's 50-100ms before your script even starts. nr is a native binary—it starts instantly.

Direct exec. On Unix systems, nr uses the exec() syscall to replace itself with your command. No fork, no wait, no overhead. Your script runs in the same process slot.

Minimal parsing. We only read the scripts field from package.json. Not dependencies, not lockfiles, not node_modules. Just scripts.

Tiny binary. 377KB. No runtime, no GC, no framework. Just machine code.

What it doesn't do

nr is intentionally minimal:

• No pre/post lifecycle scripts (use nr pretest && nr test if needed)
• No workspaces support

If you need these features, use npm. If you want speed, use nr.

Build from source

git clone https://github.com/dawsbot/nr
cd nr
cargo build --release
cp target/release/nr /usr/local/bin/

Status

Experimental. Works on my machine. Report issues at GitHub.

License

MIT