# here i'm in my home dir, and try to run "npm outdated", as of course will fail as it should be run from the ~/.node-red folder...
[pi@mylinux] ~
$ npm outdated

# then i created an alias that FIRST changes to the right directory, THEN runs npm, with whatever option you pass to it, of course...
[pi@mylinux] ~
$ alias npm="cd ~/.node-red;npm "

# so if i now AGAIN, from my HOME dir, run the same command, it works :)
[pi@mylinux] ~
$ npm outdated
Package                    Current  Wanted  Latest  Location
i2c-bus                      3.1.0   3.2.0   3.2.0  pi
moment                      2.22.0  2.22.1  2.22.1  pi
node-red-contrib-bigtimer    1.8.1   1.8.1   1.9.2  pi
node-red-contrib-chatbot    0.10.3  0.10.3  0.12.2  pi
node-red-dashboard           2.9.0   2.9.1   2.9.1  pi

# and you're left in the ~/.node-red folder so you can do other commands, of course... you can see it from the prompt and with the "pwd" command
[pi@mylinux] ~/.node-red
$ pwd
/home/pi/.node-red

# for example using NCU to check for updates (install it with "sudo npm i -g npm-check-updates"):
[pi@mylinux] ~/.node-red
$ ncu -u
Using /home/pi/.node-red/package.json
[..................] | :
 node-red-contrib-bigtimer   ~1.8.1  →   ~1.9.2
 node-red-contrib-chatbot   ~0.10.3  →  ~0.12.2
 i2c-bus              ^3.1.0  →   ^3.2.0
 moment              ^2.18.1  →  ^2.22.1
 node-red-dashboard   ~2.9.0  →   ~2.9.1

Upgraded /home/pi/.node-red/package.json

# after NCU has updated your package.json, you can use npm install to update to latest packages versions
[pi@mylinux] ~/.node-red
$ npm -s install
pi@1.0.0 /home/pi/.node-red
+-- node-red-contrib-bigtimer@1.9.2
`-- node-red-contrib-chatbot@0.12.2
  +-- @slack/client@3.16.0
  | +-- lodash@4.17.10
  | `-- winston@2.4.2
  +-- node-telegram-bot-api@0.30.0
  | `-- eventemitter3@3.1.0
  +-- prettyjson@1.2.1
  | `-- colors@1.2.3
  `-- underscore@1.9.0
+-- i2c-bus@3.2.0
+-- moment@2.22.1
`-- node-red-dashboard@2.9.1