[gcb0]

because npm's is implicitly in the build pipeline. You won't run 'npm install' on production! you run that on development/certification and then push the validated image to production.

With deno, there is no distinction anymore, kinda of. You still can send to production images that have the deno cache. Only thing that changes is the default. Previously you would have to explicitly run 'npm install' on the production host, failing that the code fails. With deno you still can choose to push to production an image without the caches (same as 'npm install' in prod), but now the default is that untested code in QA will auto install without hash check!

in summary: absolutely no practical change (i.e. no new feature impossible before) other than production defaulting to installing remote dependencies of proven-not-tested functions.