[BUG] `npm link` tries accessing the network

Is there an existing issue for this?

• I have searched the existing issues

This issue exists in the latest npm version

• I am using the latest npm

Current Behavior

It prints a network related error:

npm error code EAI_AGAIN
npm error syscall getaddrinfo
npm error errno EAI_AGAIN
npm error request to https://registry.npmjs.org/react-dom failed, reason: getaddrinfo EAI_AGAIN registry.npmjs.org
npm error A complete log of this run can be found in: /root/.npm/_logs/2025-08-15T13_42_32_900Z-debug-0.log

Expected Behavior

Any error that is not network-related (e.g. because there's no packages.json) or success.

Steps To Reproduce

npm link is documented to only create a symlink, but instead it downloads stuff.

This might be a huge issue globally, because npm commands are often called in CI, and it is usually assumed that by the time npm link is called CI has all the deps cached (otherwise every pipeline someone somewhere triggers would result in accessing nodejs servers without devopses knowing it).

So unfortunately, npm link exhibits undocumented behavior where if it doesn't find deps in the system, it goes out online and silently fetches stuff from the internet, which puts excess load on both the users of CI and the nodejs servers.

To reproduce (in terms of terminal commands):

$ mkdir -p /tmp/foo && cd /tmp/foo
$ echo 'FROM docker.io/library/fedora:41\nRUN dnf install -y npm sqlite3' > Dockerfile
$ podman build -f Dockerfile -t test
[…build output snipped…]
$ podman run --rm --net=none test npm link react-dom
npm error code EAI_AGAIN
npm error syscall getaddrinfo
npm error errno EAI_AGAIN
npm error request to https://registry.npmjs.org/react-dom failed, reason: getaddrinfo EAI_AGAIN registry.npmjs.org
npm error A complete log of this run can be found in: /root/.npm/_logs/2025-08-15T13_42_32_900Z-debug-0.log

Environment

• npm: 11.5.2
• Node.js: v24.5.0
• OS Name: Archlinux
• System Model Name: Dell G15
• npm config:

; node bin location = /usr/bin/node
; node version = v24.5.0
; npm local prefix = /tmp/foo
; npm version = 11.5.2
; cwd = /tmp/foo
; HOME = /home/constantine
; Run `npm config ls -l` to show all defaults.

Reproduce the report with the shown Dockerfile and podman run --rm --net=none test npm link react-dom command. No source file or test is named, so first locate the npm link entry point and add a regression test; done means the command creates the symlink or reports a non-network error without contacting the registry.