> Sure, but that does not change the fact that I would have had to rebuild the whole server there too. chef-client -z -r 'my-cookbook::npm_web_server' Obvi

> Sure, but that does not change the fact that I would have had to rebuild the whole server there too. chef-client -z -r 'my-cookbook::npm_web_server' Obviously the behavior of NPM absolutely sucks and is a total mess here, but "I had to rebuild the server", in 2018, is not nearly the material complaint it was a decade ago. The tradeoff of using rapidly-evolving tools with minimal oversight from the people creating them is that sometimes stuff blows up and not even always for good reasons. It is incumbent upon you, as the recipient of this enormous, jaw-dropping raft of free stuff that occasionally explodes, to write code and operate your systems defensively. Part of which is implementing those systems to be repeatable and quickly reinstantiated. If you do not like this tradeoff, you have other options as well.