In package management systems like npm (for JavaScript/Node.js projects), dependencies are typically fetched from a remote registry. However, there are times when developers want to depend on a package that is local to their machine or not published to a registry. This is where the file: protocol comes into play in the package.json file.
"dependencies": {
"@awesome/logger": "file:../logger"
}It means that the project has a dependency on the @awesome/logger package, but instead of downloading it from a registry (like npm's registry), it's going to source it directly from a local directory.