I am currently working on a project at a large company, and according to the project I am working on, every time I want to quickstart the app, I would need to first run the command `npm install` and then run all the additional compiling instructions, but the problem is that running `npm install` can take a long time, and that is why I am wondering if it is necessary to run this command every time I make a change to the code, and then want to compile and run it.

What exactly does `npm install` do? If you could explain to me in terms of how we compile and run java code i.e. `javac bob.java` && `java bob` and try to make analogies on that basis, that would greatly help me understand the concept. The way I am currently thinking about it right now is that `npm install` kind of runs like how `javac` runs, but I am not sure if that is correct. Thanks in advance!