How to set package latest version in Bower?

If you are using bower version 1.2.x, this should work:

{
    "name": "project name",
    "version": "1.0.0",
    "dependencies": {
        "backbone-amd": "latest",
        "underscore-amd": "latest",
        "requirejs": "latest"
    }
}

You can use the latest keyword when installing a package. Be aware that you can get some dependencies issues :

bower install --save font-awesome#latest

bower font-awesome#4.1.0    not-cached git://github.com/FortAwesome/Font-Awesome.git#4.1.0
bower font-awesome#4.1.0       resolve git://github.com/FortAwesome/Font-Awesome.git#4.1.0
bower font-awesome#4.1.0      download https://github.com/FortAwesome/Font-Awesome/archive/v4.1.0.tar.gz
bower font-awesome#4.1.0       extract archive.tar.gz
bower font-awesome#4.1.0      resolved git://github.com/FortAwesome/Font-Awesome.git#4.1.0

There is a -F flag that can go even further:

-F, --force-latest      Force latest version on conflict

I have found an easy alternative, instead of updating manually, you could use one command:

First install this:

npm install -g bower-check-updates

Then run the bcu to check for the updates

After check, bcu -u to upgrade your bower.json and its done!

More details and source:

bower-check-updates - is totally clone of npm-check-updates, but it updates bower.json dependencies (bower-check-updates updates bower.json).

Source: https://www.npmjs.com/package/bower-check-updates