Is there a way to alphabetize package.json without installing a package?

The sort-package-json package sorts not only dependencies and devDependencies, but other keys as well. I know the original questions didn't ask about the other keys, but I think it's cool to have all keys sorted.

You can simply run:

npx sort-package-json

Example from the package page:

$ cd my-project

$ cat package.json
{
  "dependencies": {
    "sort-package-json": "1.0.0",
    "sort-object-keys": "1.0.0"
  },
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "name": "my-awesome-project"
}
 
$ npx sort-package-json
package.json is sorted!
 
$ cat package.json
{
  "name": "my-awesome-project",
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "dependencies": {
    "sort-object-keys": "1.0.0",
    "sort-package-json": "1.0.0"
  }
}

This does not remove the trailing newline like the npm-sort package mentioned by Wolfgang.

Multiple files

$ sort-package-json "my-package/package.json" "other-package/package.json"

$ sort-package-json "package.json" "packages/*/package.json"

In addition to martias answer, you can just run:

npx sort-package-json

This won't install it permanently. You need npm >5.2.

I have found the npm-sort package, which seems to work quite well, with the minor niggle that it removes the trailing newline from the package.json file.

Just run npm remove --save anything or npm remove --save-dev whatever and npm will sort that section, without actually touching any of the content. Of course you should make sure that the package name you pass it (which can be anything, spam your keyboard) isn't in your package.json.